Roughly 1,300 Filipinos and 460 Thais now live on the island, CNA reported. The Filipino community has grown nearly fivefold from five years ago, while the Thai population has roughly doubled.

AFP put the Filipino figure slightly lower, at about 1,200, in a May report from Ilulissat, and identified Filipinos as the largest foreign diaspora in the Danish autonomous territory.

In Nuuk, the capital, there were 770 Filipinos in 2026, compared with 118 a decade ago.

They work in supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, fisheries, cleaning companies, breweries, health facilities and small businesses.

CNA reported that 12% to 13% of the workforce now comes from outside Greenlandic backgrounds, a category that includes Danes and other Europeans.

AFP, citing Greenland's employers' organizations, put the share of Asian workers at 5% to 6%.

Greenland is the world's largest island at about 2.16 million square kilometers, roughly the size of Western Europe, but its ice sheet covers close to 80% of the surface and its population is smaller than that of a mid-sized town.

The island is expanding tourism, services, mining and energy. A survey by the Greenland Business Association found a shortfall of around 600 workers across all sectors, and the association says the real gap is larger.

"If we all had two or three jobs, we still wouldn't have enough people in Greenland. So we are going to be dependent on people coming in," Christian Keldsen, the association's director, told CNA.

A worker from Asia in Greenland earned an average of $52,800 across all sectors in 2024, according to figures cited by CNA. That is about 9.5 times the average annual wage in Thailand and more than 12 times the average in the Philippines.

A work permit also carries publicly financed healthcare, medicine, education and retirement benefits, said Steven Arnfjord, a professor at the University of Greenland who directs its Center for Arctic Welfare.

Few migrants arrive through recruitment agencies. One relative secures a permit, establishes themselves, then brings a spouse or children through family reunification.

A worker waits at the harbor in Nuuk, Greenland, Sept. 7, 2021. Photo by Reuters

Kristine Juul, a researcher at Roskilde University, has described the pattern to Polar Journal as chain migration, in which relatives and friends pass job information across continents.

Annabelle Cruz, 39, is a sales leader at the Brugseni supermarket chain in Nuuk. She is one of 31 members of her extended family now living and working in the capital, a chain that began 16 years ago when her sister moved.

Cruz arrived from Pampanga two years ago and now switches between English, Danish and Greenlandic on the shop floor.

About 10.7 million Filipinos live overseas, close to a tenth of the country's population, according to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas.

Personal remittances reached a record $39.62 billion in 2025, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported, while cash remittances of $35.63 billion equaled 7.3% of GDP. Thailand's inflows run at roughly 2% of GDP, World Bank data shows.

Keldsen said the government is working with employers on faster hiring. The old assumption that outside labor signals local incompetence is a colonial hangover that could fuel a backlash if handled badly, he said.

Tillie Martinussen, who sat in Greenland's parliament from 2018 to 2021, told CNA that nationalist politicians have tried to frame the issue as foreigners against Greenlanders, without much traction so far.

Merlyn Mejala, a Filipino business owner in Nuuk since 2010, said she has heard complaints that locals cannot find work because Filipinos have taken it.

Thai restaurants on the island now serve pad kaphrao with reindeer and panang curry with musk ox.

Rid Mondejar, 37, followed her husband from Cebu to Sisimiut 11 years ago. She said she does not plan to stay permanently.

"My roots are still there. I'm still from the Philippines. I'm a Filipino," she told CNA.