Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called “sponsored” Work Permits. Now I did a video I think last week, it would have gone up last week from the time of this video, where I asked viewers basically look we have kind of put the whole pandemic behind us, the lockdowns, the closure of Thailand in terms of Immigration, that's basically in the rear view. Now I have said we perhaps are not at the end of the tunnel but we are certainly basking in the light at the end of the tunnel and I am hoping everything continues in a positive trajectory moving forward. But the purpose of this video, a lot of folks sent through comments and emails, questions that they had for me to do videos on. One thing, I am not even going to read a specific comment here because I got multiple ones and I got multiple emails, about so-called “sponsored” Work Permits and people said "Well I know somebody that they went and got a "sponsored" Work Permit and they are doing fine, so what are you talking about?" basically is the gist of a number of the correspondence I received.

First of all let's explain for folks that are unaware of this. There is this notion of a so-called “sponsored” Work Permit. Also I have noticed folks out there use the euphemism "employer of record" and all of this good stuff. Long story short, if you are not working for a company, if you are not really working for a given company, the Work Permit is illegal, it is fraudulent. You are saying you work somewhere that you don't really work; you are saying you work for a company you don't really work for. And we've done a number of videos on this and that is how so-called "sponsored" Work Permits work. It's "Oh I just get a "job" with a company and basically pay them to get me a Work Permit through their company." Well that is all well and good until that company gets inspected by the Department of Employment which are inspecting far more now than they ever have before than I ever remember, certainly far more than the past 3 or 4 years where we have been dealing with all this stuff going on in the background where that wasn't really a major priority for them. Yeah, DOE, Department of Employment, I have seen multiple inspections in the last couple of weeks, okay. They are not messing around when it comes to the Labour Department here in Thailand. Meanwhile, Immigration could also be a problem if you get inspected on a place you are not actually working, again it could end up being a deportation issue. 

So, the thing to understand is look anytime you are saying you are doing something to the Government and you are not doing that thing, you have got a real problem and sponsored Work Permits are a perfect example of this and I know people are just running around just kind of waving it off saying "it's no big deal". I have seen people get in trouble over “sponsored” Work Permits, I have personally seen it on multiple different occasions; two of them got deported that I actually saw. So again, this is not something to just wave kind of wave away, it is something to be very, very serious about. If you are going to work in Thailand, you need to be in line with the law and your activities need to be in line with the law and you need to be doing what you are telling the Government you are doing.