For the first time, a large number of Cambodians will soon be sent to work in Japan, a local employment agency said Thursday.
However, a Japanese Embassy official said Thursday that he knew nothing of the firm.
“Thousands of Cambodian youths who finished high school or university have applied,” said Calvin Thibol, manager of the C-Pro company in Phnom Penh.
“At least 200 to 300 will be selected to attend Japan’s vocational training center…we hope that the first group will be able to fly out in
November or December.”
Calvin Thibol said that C-Pro will provide a month and a half crash course in Japanese for the workers who will then be trained in Japan in skills like mechanics and computer maintenance. Companies will then hire the workers at a fixed salary, he said.
“For the first year, Japanese companies will offer a $500 a month allowance,” he said. “For the next two years, the participant will work at the company and must return to Cambodia after that.”
Calvin Thibol said C-Pro will earn revenue from the Japanese companies and only charge applicants a small application fee. He also said that C-Pro had the support of the Japanese Embassy. But an embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the economic section had never had any contact with C-Pro and that the embassy did not give it advice or financial support.
“It could be that someone in the Japanese government has been in contact with them, but we do not have any information about that,” the embassy official said.
Minister of Labor Nhep Bunchin said C-Pro registered with his ministry a few months ago.
“It is a legal business supported by the Japanese government,” Nhep Bunchin said, adding that he would discuss employment opportunities in Japan with the Japanese Labor Minister during a trip to Japan later this month.
An official in the Ministry of Labor’s employment department said that, from 1998 to 2005, some 5,231 Cambodians went to work legally in Malaysia, and that from 2002 to 2005, 1,800 went to South Korea.
