Thai migrant labor crunch leaves fruit rotting and jobs unfilled

Workers, including a refugee from Myanmar, at a farm in Thailand's Chanthaburi province in November last year | REUTERS

Bloomberg

Oct 13, 2026

Ripe mangosteen and rambutan hang unpicked from trees in eastern Thailand, where a shortage of migrant workers is forcing growers to decide which crops are valuable enough to harvest and which will be left to rot.

For Jomsak Putirattana, who also grows durian in Chanthaburi province, the departure of his five Cambodian workers after a border dispute disrupted crossings has intensified competition for labor. Daily wages have more than doubled in some cases, from about 350 to 400 baht ($10 to $12) to as much as 800 to 1,000 baht, he said, making some lower-value crops too costly to harvest.

“We have to choose which fruit to harvest and leave the lower-priced fruit to rot on the trees,” Jomsak said. His hope of keeping more of the crop from going to waste “is dimming every day,” he added.

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