Laos officials say 10% of their country's work force or roughly 180,000 are now working legally in Thailand, which means over 200,000 are illegal, unregistered workers. By Thai authorities' estimate, there are in all over 400,000 workers from Laos, 50% of which are female.

Laos says it plans to promote foreign investment in its country to create more jobs for its unemployed work force.

Listen to our Laos Today report for more on this story.