hello,

i am in hong kong at the moment and plan to expand our business to thailand. now here is my question: are thais more into free time or money?

HK people prefer to earn more and give up their free time to work in the office for 10-12 hours a day, even on saturday. they are totally money oriented.

how about thais? are they the same?

thanks

sandra

- Thais with chinese origins are more into money. A bit like HK or Singapore, maybe not that obsessed.

- Other Thais are more into leisure. Lazy.

Disclaimer: wide generalization.

Yep Wide generalization, but fairly correct,

Also, if you are looking for High Level English Speaking Thai's, the working Saturday bit, is a big hurdle to overcome, lots & lots of International companies are actively seeking English Speaking Thai Staff and they dont work Saturdays

thanks for these fast answers.

actually i dont mind if they work from mon-fri, i dont want my staff to work on sat anyway.

i also want to have a nice weekend ;-)

how much do i have to pay for an english speaking assistant (office worker with a bit more skills than "normal" office workers)?

how much for an english speaking "normal" office worker?

thanks

sandra

A hotel cashier I associated with recently got two days

off a month (she worked the other 29etc) and a waitress

in the bar resto down the street worked 8am to 4pm to

pay her rent and then went off to her evening job and

worked until 11pm to pay everything else.

I suppose just trying to make ends meet is being

money-oriented.

Well, by saying that Thais don't work on Saturday is not 100% correct.

If you pay them appropriately, they will be happy to come even the whole weekend.

Lots of my frined who work as an auditor or engineer do work on weekend regulary because they are paid well i.e. their overtime compensations usually exceed their base salary.

they prefer to send their daughter(s) to work in Pattaya bars, so they can have BOTH money and free time.

(guess another week suspension is coming for me.... )

how much do i have to pay for an english speaking assistant (office worker with a bit more skills than "normal" office workers)?

Depends on the English level. Average English (someone who can understand most of what you say, if you speak slowly, repeat things in different ways etc.) can cost you around 15,000 baht. BTW, Thais will call this English level "Excellent".

For good English (fluent) you will probably need to hire someone who studied abroad. It can easily cost you 25,000 baht.

thanks so much for all these answers.

it helped me to get an idea of my future costs operating in thailand.

thanks.

sandra