Kong Janoi, IMNA, additional reporting by Om Soe, News feature : In Rangoon, the former capital of Burma: the passport office is full of people waiting to process documents, and trainings for languages like English and Chinese are being taught. Burma suffers from an increasing lack of job opportunities, and studying and working abroad have become primary goals for millions of Burmese people.
Big city dwellers aren’t the only ones pursuing foreign job and study opportunities. Residents from rural villages in Mon State are flocking to Rangoon for language training classes, and using the city as a base to search for overseas employment and study.
A Rangoon-based overseas employment agency manager claimed that people are flooding to the city hoping to find jobs in foreign counties. She said that the number of prospective migrant job-seekers increased dramatically this year.
“Now we are struggling to get air tickets [for migrating individuals] which has not happened before. We have to book [the tickets] in advance.”
She explained that Burmese citizens working abroad earn much higher incomes than those employed at home, leading to constant high levels of migration.
In a recent interview conducted in Rangoon, a student originally from Bilugyun island near the Mon State capital of Moulmein, claimed that she had been in the Rangoon for more that two years looking for employment abroad. She claimed that she does not have a specific goal for her future.
“First, I aimed to learn English when I arrived in Rangoon. I planned to go Singapore for a job. Later on, I found it is inadequate [to know] only the English language so I started learning Chinese and accounting. But now Hong Kong is offering a job for nurses so I may take a nursing course next,” she said.
Like her, many other young people are planning for a life of migration.
Exact figures regarding the total number of Burmese citizens living abroad are unavailable. In it’s April 2010 report, the Human Rights Foundation of Monland estimated that 1.5 to 2 million Burmese migrant workers live in Thailand alone; this number does not include students, or the millions of Burmese migrants who have moved to Malaysia, Singapore, and other destinations.
A study conducted in late 2008 by the Social Environmental Research Consultant (SERC) entitled “A Comparative Picture of Migration in Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand: Summary”, indicated that overwhelmingly, Burmese citizens are struggling to make ends meet in their native land; 71% of 708 individuals interviewed claimed that they had migrated out of economic necessity.
SERC’s study also indicated a particularly trouble trend: increasing numbers of Burmese youth, educated individuals, and students who are opting to leave the country in favor of greener pastures abroad. Of 370 individuals interviewed who had returned to Burma, 9% had studied at a university. Even having an advanced degree from one of Burma’s universities is not, it seems, enough to guarantee Burmese citizens” security, and many of the country’s youth are opting to escape an uncertain future by studying and working abroad.
Mi Nyein Chan is currently studying in Thailand. She could not attend university after she finished high school in Burma because of money issues, so she came to Thailand as an illegal migrant to find a job. Working in a jade processing factory, she earned 5,000 baht a month. She reported that most her earnings were sent back home.
After one-and-a half years of working in Thailand, she went back to Burma to attend university.
“I dreamed of being a university student. That is why, I came to Thailand to find some of my tuition fees but after I got into the university in Tovoy (her home town in lower Burma), I felt that university education there was not worthwhile to spend my time and money on, so I dropped it.”
Like many current potential migrant students Nyein Chan claimed she spent several months in Rangoon taking English language classes to become eligible for entrance at an international university in Bangkok.
“My first objective for studying here [in Thailand] is making money while I am receiving a quality education. As soon as I arrived, I strived for survival and tuition fees. At that time, my job was not a regular one: some days I could work and some days I couldn’t. I had to take a break [from university] in my second year’s first semester, because I ran out of money.”
Withdrawing her enrollment at her university for five months, Nyein Chan re-enrolled after finding a job in a night bazaar tourist attraction shop. She earns around 8,000 baht ( 250 USD) a month.
“Although I earn [a salary] that is reasonably good for me, it is a night time job. I have to go to work from 4 pm to 12 am. After my job it is long way back my apartment. At night time, the sub way train [MRT] closes. I have to take two buses to get back. I normally go to sleep at 2 am. Waking up for morning classes, I cannot focus much on the subjects. I failed two subjects.”
Although many scholarships are available for Burmese students who cannot support themselves, she was not eligible because of poor academic performance.
“I am sure if I only focused on study I can do better. At that time, I was pressured with the tuition fees and living expenses.”
Despite financial difficulties, she remains satisfied with her choice to studying abroad.
“When I graduate, I will find a job at a company in Thailand because I can earn more here.”
Claims that increasing numbers of Burmese citizens are opting to migrate for economic reasons come as no surprise; Burma’s economy, heavily dependent on rice, suffered greatly last year after mass flooding and crop infestation. The Democratic Voice of Burma online news-source claimed in an article published on July 20th of this year that Burma’s rice exports had dropped 60 percent this year; the Burmese government’s Central Statistics Organization (CSO) has published statistics that rice exports fell from 750,000 tonnes in the first six months of 2009 to to just 270,000 tonnes exported within the first six months of 2010.
As Burmese citizens struggle to survive and find employment in failing economy, they are further hindered by the Burmese government’s disinterest in engaging with the nation’s unemployment problem. According to official reports filed by the Burmese government in the CIA Factbook, Burma has an unemployment rate of roughly 5%, on par with many western countries, despite the fact that the average reported per capita income of a Burmese citizen was 1,100 USD [USD].
Dr Sean Turnell, Burma economics expert and Associate Professor of Economics at Maquarie University, pointed to what he called the Burmese government’s “willful economic mismanagement” when asked to comment Burma’s official unemployment rate, or lack thereof:
“Burma’s official unemployment rate is, quite frankly, an absurdity. We’re not even sure of what the country’s population is (as you know, it’s been nearly 60 years since a proper census was done), and the estimates for this vary by around 20% (the Asian Development Bank puts the population at about 58 million, the CIA at 48 million). So, as you can see, if this basic number is unknown (as are the numbers of people forced to flee Burma) – any sort of accuracy along the lines suggested by the Burmese regime is fanciful.”
In a nation where the current regime’s management of the country’s finances is described as “fanciful”, hope seems to lie in the immanent Burmese elections, set for November 7th. But in this respect the future, at least according to Dr. Turnell, looks grim, as most of the parties competing for election have failed to outline a solution for Burma’s economic crisis.
Dr Turnell explained, “There are no proposals for genuine reform, and no assurances that the foundations of transformational growth are likely to be put in place (effective property rights, rational policy-making, a sound currency, a unified exchange rate, increased investment in human capital [health, education], etc). The state continues to take most of the country’s financial and real resources, and the foreign exchange it earns from Burma’s booming exports of gas to Thailand do not even come into the country. Stashed abroad in accounts that are only accessible to Burma’s ruling elite, they are kept from becoming the basis of the ‘game changer’ that they could be with respect to the country’s prospects.”
With no “game change” in sight, it is unlikely that Burmese citizens will stop clogging airports, flocking to foreign language classes, and using their skills (and often, higher education degrees) to find work abroad anytime soon.
