Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) stated on November 24th, 2014, that in the third quarter of 2014, Thailand is facing the problem of increased unemployment. They say this is due to entrepreneurs slowing their business expansions and reducing employment as well as the agricultural sector heading into a season of drought. Deputy Secretary General Chutinart Wongsuban of the NESDB said that the agency found that there are 326,616 unemployed workers in the country which is about 0.84%. This is an increase of 0.77% compared to the same quarter in 2013. However, employment in some sectors, such as in production, logistics, retailing, hotel restaurants and realty, has risen about 9.6% in total.
Former secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), Supachai Panitchpakdi, recently spoke at a seminar on "Influence of the 2015 Global Economy on Thai Economy and Capital Markets" at which he said, "Thailand is an agricultural society. Its 0.9-per-cent unemployment rate may not be really [accepted] as the country has high disguised unemployment. Thailand has a high figure for off-season unemployment." This disguised unemployment is a big problem because a lot of Thai workers are contributed to working in the agricultural sector, about 40%. The agricultural sector has low productivity with average incomes of only 27,000 baht per person per year. If some people contributed to this sector are actually unemployed then they are likely making less than this.
The solution is to create more manufacturing jobs. The average salary per person per year in that sector is 350,000 baht. Service jobs are also a big step up for agricultural workers as that pays 150,000 baht on average per person per year.
