Thailand ranked 4th lowest in unemployment

[jenny2017]

 

He said a recent survey by Trading Economics.com and Index mundi.com on global employment status, listed Thailand 4th among countries with the least unemployment. The survey considered the employment situation in 215 countries. As of March 2018, 1.2 percent of Thailand's total 66.2 million population are currently unemployed.What about the 50 + percent noodle soup vendors and a huge number of unemployed villagers, often high on Jabba and Lhao Kao.

Do they not exist in their findings? The mind boggles. 

[manhood]

This is one of the many big lies in this country: 50% of the employed people are wothless and good for nothing for the companies. Just keep them away from the streets and turning into robbing or whatever as long there is no unemployment system running well.

So bring it down to the productivity of every employee! In europe the companies would not be able to compete with any product on the world market!

but as long labour is quite cheap the system is running this way!

[ikke]

3 hours ago, HampiK said:

They calculating the percentage from the people who could be employed.

So foreigner without work-permit not counting, old people after some age not have to work, children I hope they not counting as children should not work either !!!

 

More or less I guess it's a similar counting as in Europe and don't tell me they are cheating more with the numbers, because every country (even in Europe) they do that.

Don't tell they cheat ???? They not register unemployment , i think a right number would be around 6% if they would register .

[kickstart]

58 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Read up on sampling, that's how they count people, even in the US! https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/september/precise-local-unemployment-rates

Interesting article, but as it says they do some counting using by unemployment insurance claims, people are registered and on they system and can be counted.

Here in Thailand  if  you work for a company and pay tax and social security, you can be counted, but our rice farmer who is not registered  on the SS for anything, is all most an un-person  for SS reasons, how can he be counted, I have 

met some unemployed  Thai's that  still pay in to the social security system, so if they fall sick they can get some medical treatment. I would say they would be counted as employed as they pay into the system. 

Even the article said the figures are not 100 %, and that comes from a country where most people are registered.                Sill say figures here in Thailand are cooked, even if it does take 10 paid Thai's to change a light bulb.

[DavisH]

3 hours ago, KittenKong said:

Anyone who has ever seen two or three Thais doing one man's job should know why the official unemployment rate is very low here.

Whenever anyone comes to my condo to do anything there are always more people than it would take to do the same thing in the West. Usually one to do the job, one to pass things to the one doing the job, and one to tidy up for the other two. For important jobs you may also get the owner or manager turning up, and he would do nothing apart from give orders to the others.

But to me, it's better to have three employed low paid workers rather than one highly paid + 2 on unemployment benefits, as one finds in Australia. 

[thaipo7]

I think the Thai Government only counts the bigger cities.  Go to any village and you will find the poor with no chance of employment, just sitting around hoping that someone will show up with a bottle of whiskey to get through that day.

[BobBKK]

Lies

[Odysseus123]

1 minute ago, thaipo7 said:

I think the Thai Government only counts the bigger cities.  Go to any village and you will find the poor with no chance of employment, just sitting around hoping that someone will show up with a bottle of whiskey to get through that day.

I wanted to get my yard cleaned up and all the junk accumulated by the Thai family removed.The Son-in-law and his mates declined as a bottle of Sansom was beckoning.

Then a rather hefty young Thai male turned up and said he would do it tomorrow..

Come the following morning and three grannies arrived instead,worked like Trojans and got double the pay!

 

I got tired of listening to Thai males give reasons as to why they were allergic to work.

I call BS on the stats.

[The Deerhunter]

4 hours ago, Eligius said:

 

 

4 hours ago, ezzra said:

No way the authorities knows how many people are really out of work, as no unemployment benefits are paid, there are no incentive to people to go and register as unemployed, all the government can is estimate, and with a country that inherently the majority of the people doesn't pay taxes, their guess are good as any... 

Exactly and an unusual situation here with up to a million men (depending on how you calulate it, permanently in temples) who are not looking for work or who are possibly considered employed!!!!  (Reputedly there are 50,000 temples and 5,000 mediation & buddhiist education centres in the land.)  Heavily industrialised places like Eastern Seaboard would have no almost unemployment.  We can never get reliable farm labour. The more Northern  and inland regions might be a different story if there was anyone there to count them.

[bkk6060]

Walk thru Home Pro.

This place is the most over employed place maybe in the world.

The true unemployment should be 10%+.

[kannot]

3 hours ago, KittenKong said:

Anyone who has ever seen two or three Thais doing one man's job should know why the official unemployment rate is very low here.

Whenever anyone comes to my condo to do anything there are always more people than it would take to do the same thing in the West. Usually one to do the job, one to pass things to the one doing the job, and one to tidy up for the other two. For important jobs you may also get the owner or manager turning up, and he would do nothing apart from give orders to the others.

and when theyve  left the problem is  still there  or so badly  done needs  re  doing correctly.............thus keeping more idiots employed

[fantom]

3 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

Read up on sampling, that's how they count people, even in the US! https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/september/precise-local-unemployment-rates

True but there are glaring holes in the way the data has been presented and I suspect is vulnerable (to put it politely) to sampling bias:

'Sampling in statistics is the selection of a subset of individuals within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population.'

 

1. As many here have pointed out, what was the statistical population? In other words from just what part of the overall population were they trying to measure? Did they try to measure a cross section of those of employable age or a cross section of those registered and paying into the social security system for example.

2. How did they define the subset, ie those they actually measured?

 

A glaring example of sampling bias was the 1948 American election when Dewey was predicated to beat Roosevelt. Roosevelt went on to win by a landslide.  The prediction was based on a phone survey and it was later determined that of course only a rich people with homes had telephones and therefore telephone users were not representative of the voting population. This example is routinely taught in first year statistics. Another example is 'The caveman effect.' Much information is derived from cave paintings on rock, but all information that might have been painted on trees, bits of bark and wood has long gone.

[toofarnorth]

Up here where I live there seem to be few jobs about . A very good Ladyboy .....friend I have known for 4 years has had 6 jobs in that time , all but 1 failed because there is no money up here , the last job was bagging up vegetables , starting at 3am then coming back at 2pm , how this could come into any statistics i can't imagine.  Any road t'up he is happy big now as he starts work this week at Mae Fa Luang university as a maid ( that is what he told me ) starts at 5am and works 'til 3pm . 10k on his Wave to get there , but he has a job and proud to tell me.     Not like the west eh ?  No safety net here.

[The Deerhunter]

2 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

Walk thru Home Pro.

This place is the most over employed place maybe in the world.

The true unemployment should be 10%+.

They and Thai Watsadu are always having deep and meaningful staff group conferences or group training sessions when I go there.

[Sir Dude]

Total nonsense to say 1.2% of the entire population of Thailand (66 million) are unemployed. Most old people, university students, children and so forth are not employed. Secondly, lying in a hammock on the side of the road waiting for people to stop and buy bit of fruit or something does not constitute employment. Thirdly, in most other parts of the world you are considered employed only if you are paying income tax. And lastly, I doubt that the government has the ability/intention to accurately come up with any national figures that can be even slightly believable...look no further than TAT and it's blatant lies. 

[Eligius]

22 minutes ago, The Deerhunter said:

They and Thai Watsadu are always having deep and meaningful staff group conferences or group training sessions when I go there.

Yes - numerous staff conferences and staff clusterings  - and they know nothing about anything when asked by the customers - like nearly all Thai shop assistants - even in Thailand's TOP hi-so stores (such as Central Chitlom in BKK). I've never encountered such professional ignorance to this level anywhere on earth. It's stunning. In fact, I would say that Thailand is the cosmic HUB of unrivalled shop-assistant IGNORANCE!

 

[simoh1490]

3 minutes ago, Sir Dude said:

Total nonsense to say 1.2% of the entire population of Thailand (66 million) are unemployed. Most old people, university students, children and so forth are not employed. Secondly, lying in a hammock on the side of the road waiting for people to stop and buy bit of fruit or something does not constitute employment. Thirdly, in most other parts of the world you are considered employed only if you are paying income tax. And lastly, I doubt that the government has the ability/intention to accurately come up with any nation figures that can be even slightly believable...look no further than TAT and it's blatant lies. 

3

"in most other parts of the world you are considered employed only if you are paying income tax".

 

Rubbish! Zero contract workers and part time staff are considered to be employed yet hardly any pay tax!

 

You may wish to read the thread and see what's already been said!

 

 

[stanleycoin]

I like to think I do my part to keep the good ladies employed in Thailand.

Good job ladies,  thank you. 

[Jonmarleesco]

Big deal. TiT. Give someone a whistle and a couple of satang to rub together, and voila, they're employed.

[Jonmarleesco]

22 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

"in most other parts of the world you are considered employed only if you are paying income tax".

 

Rubbish! Zero contract workers and part time staff are considered to be employed yet hardly any pay tax!

 

You may wish to read the thread and see what's already been said!

 

 

'Zero contract workers ... are considered to be employed ...'

 

I doubt the workers would agree with you. 

[Joeissimo]

Every country has their own method to count unemployment working age/eligibility. 1.2% does not reflect real unemployment rate (try google “real unemployment rate). The inflated rate does not count for under-employment such as a person with higher degree working at low wage job or outside their specialize skill.  I.e. working in 7-11 or as factory worker with bachelor degree.  Many counties (including U.S. during the financial crisis in 2008) want low unemployment rate to make their administration looks better specially before the election.  BTW, I have no opinion in any political party in any country (I can vote in U.S.). This study does not have impact in economic prediction in the Thai’s GDP or SET.  But it just give a good headline for Thai’s newspaper.   

[The Deerhunter]

39 minutes ago, Eligius said:

Yes - numerous staff conferences and staff clusterings  - and they know nothing about anything when asked by the customers - like nearly all Thai shop assistants - even in Thailand's TOP hi-so stores (such as Central Chitlom in BKK). I've never encountered such professional ignorance to this level anywhere on earth. It's stunning. In fact, I would say that Thailand is the cosmic HUB of unrivalled shop-assistant IGNORANCE!

 

Pay peanuts get monkeys!   But Foreigners are probably not allowed to do shop work, or getting such a work permit would be too much hassle. (as if we would work for 300B or even 1,000B a day {$US3.30 +/-} anyway.)

[Srikcir]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand ranked 4th lowest in unemployment

Much of this may be due to the broad definition of the unemployment rate and employment-population ratio according to the International Labor Organization report Thailand – A labour market profile:

• "According to the ILO, an employed person is someone aged 15–64 who, during a labour force survey week, worked for at least one hour for wage/salary, profit, dividends or any other payment in kind or did not work at all or worked less than one hour but received wage/salary, profit from business enterprise or farm during a period of absence or did not receive wage/salary, profit from business enterprise or farm during the period of absence but had a regular job or business that they would return to."

vs:

• "anyone participating in the labour force who was aged15–64 years during the Labour Force Survey week but did not work for even one hour, had no job, business enterprise or farm of their own. Persons in this category include: i) those who had been looking for work, applying for a job or waiting to be called to work during the 30 days prior to the survey date and ii) those who had not been looking for work during the 30 days prior to the survey date but were available for work during the seven days before the survey."

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_205099.pdf

 

[rickudon]

Yes, we know 1.2% is a joke. In my Thai extended family, only 3 have real jobs (2 teachers, and my wife runs a shop). Two are on Pensions (wow, 700 baht a month), and 4 work 'part-time' in the shop (less than 15 hours a week, no regular hours, no regular pay).Two others run a sausage on a stick stall part time.

 

Only the teachers are in the social security and tax system, and only 3 out of eleven are working full time. And no-one in government has ever asked who works.

 

The reality is shown that when the government introduced their benefits for poor families (ones earning under 10,000 baht family income a month and no significant property or land) earlier this year, how many applied? 12 million I think?

 

The over employment in the large stores is a good thing, because it keeps them off the streets. Crime, prostitution and human trafficking would be massive issues otherwise. The reason why the employees are so apathetic is because there is no job satisfaction, few prospects and it isn't a job they want. But it does at least give them enough to live on.

 

One poster mentioned about graduates getting 30,000 baht a month. That's a joke, very few are that lucky. Also the conditions and working hours offered to many staff are pretty awful. My sister-in-law after her husband's death (an expat) looked for a job, but at 40 she was considered to old and the one place that offered her a job wanted her to do 10 hour shifts (up to 11 p.m.) 6 days a week for under 8.000 baht a month - and that was only because it was a hotel and she could speak perfect English! She declined. By selling drinks for a few hours a day she can still make half that and decide when she works.

 

Main problem for the men in the village is about half of them are casual labourers who work by the day, irregularly. When they work they actually work quite hard, but most have an alcohol problem which accounts for most of what they make. Typically they will work until they get paid, and then drunk for 2 days and one more to sober up. So never plan jobs that take more than about 3 days for them!

 

I reckon that at least 50% of thais in our village are self employed, mainly part-time or under-employed (i.e. selling a few fruit and veg at the roadside). Unfortunately with so many doing this very few can make a living - as one friend described it, his villagers try to make a living selling noodle soup to one another - no new money, just recycling it.

[bluesofa]

12 hours ago, colinneil said:

Where do they get these figures from?

1.2 million unemployed, nonsense.

Within 100 meters of our home there are 6 unemployed men,  if that is the same in every village in Thailand the figures would be considerably larger than the government admits.

I think both the people who used to work for the office of national statistics are now two of the unemployed. There's no one reliable to total the figures up.

 

[DrTuner]

Ah that time of year again. Was it forbes or like that mentioned last year or year before that basically turning side and farting in the morning is counted as employed.

 

I'd guesstimate 30% of able men are actually working and 85% of women. A guess as good as any, since there are no unemployment benefits, few bother to pay taxes, etc.

[DavisH]

20 hours ago, Eligius said:

Yes - numerous staff conferences and staff clusterings  - and they know nothing about anything when asked by the customers - like nearly all Thai shop assistants - even in Thailand's TOP hi-so stores (such as Central Chitlom in BKK). I've never encountered such professional ignorance to this level anywhere on earth. It's stunning. In fact, I would say that Thailand is the cosmic HUB of unrivalled shop-assistant IGNORANCE!

 

Many get their jobs through nepotism and not merit. They know nothing about what they are doing. Just look at the politicians and military. Did they get their jobs based on merit alone? I think not. This fact alone stifles development of the country.