Despite having the lowest unemployment rate in the world, most of the working age population in Thailand are still under-performed and need to upgrade their skills and competencies, according to the National Statistics Office (NSC).
The NSC reported that unemployment rate in Thailand reached an all-time high of 5.73 percent in January of 2001 but decreased to 2.1 percent three years later and fell to 1 percent in 2010.The country’s jobless rate has held below 1 percent since 2011 and has remained between 0.6-1 percent since last year, it said.
The latest statistics in April of 2015 showed the country has 38.28 million workforce, comprising 37.53 million employed workers, and 324,000 unemployed workers or equating to 0.85 percent of the overall population.
Meanwhile there are 430,000 seasonal workers, mostly employed by the farm sector. The majority of the farmers do not work full time and are most likely unemployed during the off-season.
However, some of them perform casual works and are still counted the employed category.The NSC said among those employed workers, ate those working in the farming sector of which the majority are not full time workers and will be unemployed after the cultivation season.
Some also will do part-time jobs and are still counted in the employed category.Meanwhile Mrs Roong Mallikamas, Director of the Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Group said that the Thai economy recovered on a gradual pace in May, although the unemployment rate remained low and was unchanged from April. Workforce employed in agriculture sector declined due to drought, while declining price of farm products has caused the workforce to shift out of farm sector.