Thailand urged for quick skill development for workers

BANGKOK, August 28 (TNA) - An academic at Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) has urged the Ministry of Labour to quickly enhance skills of Thai workers and provide them with jobs; otherwise, unemployed people in the third quarter of this year may rise to nearly 400,000. The senior academic, Yongyuth Chalaemwong, TDRI’s research director for labour development, quoted the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) as reporting earlier this week that there were some 39.3 million people in Thailand's workforces in the second quarter of this year, a 2.1 per cent year-on-year increase, with 38.6 million of them were employed, a 1.6 per cent year-on-year increase. Yongyuth, however, pointed out that 334,121 people were jobless, making Thailand's unemployment rate standing at 0.85 per cent in the second quarter of 2012, higher than the 0.6 per cent rate in the same period of last year. Yongyuth attributed the country's increased unemployment rate to impacts from a massive flooding late last year and a daily minimum wage hike to 300 baht in Bangkok and six other provinces since last April, causing many small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to have shut down; while most local business firms keeping only skilled workers but laying off unskilled ones. The TDRI academic suggested that the Ministry of Labour bring informal workers to formal sectors in the Thai economy as soon as possible and provide them with suitable jobs and improve their skills so that they can find jobs or become freelancers. (TNA)