Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well foreigners working illegally in Thailand and being arrested for it. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English that is khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: Foreigners are arrested for working as Barber and Beauticians. Quoting directly: "Officers from Phuket Police investigated complaints of foreigners working as barbers in Patong  Subdistrict, Kathu District, Phuket Province, as one of the 27 occupations that are fully forbidden to foreigners." Yeah, there are occupations here in Thailand as we have discussed in other videos that are just totally forbidden to foreign nationals. 

This article goes on, I urge those who are watching this video, to go read that for yourself, it goes on to say that the police were called in to investigate somebody who appeared to be a foreigner working as a barber. Quoting further: "The police requested that they review his documents for admission into the Kingdom of Thailand as well as his Work Permit" (and I am just going to say name redacted) so "name redacted, this person does not have a Work Permit. He held Jordanian citizenship and accepted that he had worked as a barber at this shop. Police Officers then arrested him and took him to the Patong Police Station to document the arrest and inform him of the allegations and his rights." Quoting further: "Another location under investigation is a beauty salon in Choeng Thale Subdistrict, Thalang District in Phuket, where three Russian women ages 34, 32 and 26, were working or being employed as beauticians without a Work Permit." 

So clearly again as we have discussed in other videos, law enforcement in Thailand as well as Immigration Police and the Labour Department, are taking a much different approach especially in terms of paradigm, in how they view things like work authorization as well as visas and Business Visas and Visa status; they are serious about it. And as we have discussed in other videos, there seems to be this sort of misconception out there that it all comes down to protecting Thai jobs, that the Thais don't particularly care if foreigners are working illegally in Thailand so long as those foreigners are not "taking Thai jobs". That's not the case. As with any Immigration service, virtually any I have ever heard of around the world or any sovereign state for that matter, foreign nationals are not automatically allowed to work in those jurisdictions necessarily. Some places are more lax than others but most of the jurisdictions that I am well versed in very much take the position of "no foreign nationals, by dint of their foreign nationality, do not have the automatic right to work in our jurisdiction", speaking in the first person in terms of a given country. They basically say NO, it's not about whether or not you are going to take our jobs, it is the fact that you are working here. And, if you really think about it, if you take it to a sort of logical extreme it would be a bad deal in a sense, it would almost be akin to invasion if just swarms of people could just arrive in a given place and start working without any type of checks or authorization as a result of the fact that they are foreign nationals. Again it makes sense for a country at least on a certain level and look I have criticisms about the way certain things are carried out or executed, that's a different story, but the prevailing policy, the notion that "hey if you're a foreign national you don't just have the automatic right to work in a place", that's pretty common throughout the world and again the folks that seem to think that it's about taking Thai jobs, not only is it a misnomer but it fails to see that what's important when you are doing this analysis is to understand that a given nation is going to try to protect their labour pool. That's something that many countries view as a high priority. In my opinion oftentimes especially in the United States I think we could take a page from the Thais in terms of protection of the local economy; protection of the local labour pool but leaving that aside, that is more for an opinion piece.

The thing to take away from this video though, if you are looking to come to Thailand to work, you need to obtain work authorization and you also need to understand that there are even jobs that even if you get a Work Permit they are still prohibited and restricted only and exclusively to Thai nationals.