Thailand set to increase daily minimum wage to 492 baht

[webfact]

 

By Online Reporter

 

Workers in Thailand on the minimum wage could be about to get a pay boost, according to a new proposal.

 

The move, still to be formally approved by the government, would see the daily wage increase from between 313 and 336 baht to a new flat rate of 492 baht.

 

The 492 baht minimum wage has been put forward by agencies representing workers in the Tripartite Wage Committee.

 

The need to increase the minimum wage is due to increases in daily and monthly expenses among labourers. Expenses include food costs and travel fees, rent and utilities.

 

Full story: https://www.huahintoday.com/thailand-news/thailand-set-to-increase-daily-minimum-wage-to-492-baht/

 

-- © Copyright Hua Hin Today 2022-02-12

 

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[ThailandRyan]

Does this include the migrant workers.......wait what am I saying of course it does not......

[ezzra]

Its comes out to 62 baht an hour, even a slave laborer get paid more than that, and with the rise in the essential commodities and fuel prices lately, hardly cover the bare minimum...

[ukrules]

In percentage terms that's a huge rise and it will no doubt bring many other workers who already earn about 500 to 600 Baht a day to only slightly above the minimum wage - so they will demand an immediate pay rise and they will no doubt get it.

 

So there will be a knock on effect all the way up the chain.

 

I'm going to be very surprised if this happens, certainly on the proposed scale.

[vadid]

Very misleading headline.  This is a proposal made by the worker reps, very unlikely to be accepted by the government. So Thailand is NOT  "set to increase minimum wage to 492 baht".

[itsari]

A minimum wage is a base for what to pay a worker . 

Sadly many employers think that is what they have to to pay  and no more .

In my area 500 to 600 baht is the normal wage to pay for a construction worker .

 

 

[Pattaya Spotter]

Wow 492 is getting up there...I remember when I first moved to LOS twenty years ago it was around B 150 a day! 

[kelboy]

That's beer prices going up ,plus and plus 

[kevin612]

I doubt it, probably 360-380 baht per day if approved.

[Pravda]

My wife works in the auto industry. Thai factories can't pay these wages. The bigger problem is they will have a lot of trouble recruiting sales staff as now the starting salary for people with university degrees will be on par with every minimum wage job. I know these are still low wages, but this is not how the world works. They increased the minimum wage in Canada and now there is more poverty than ever due to astronomical real estate prices and high grocery prices. 

 

Yamaha is dumping everything in Thailand except the motorbike business by 2023.

[cyril sneer]

probably be required to work double the hours if approved

[Guderian]

Much as I'm on the side of the underpaid Thai workers, I don't see anyone being willing to pay a 50% wage increase for the same work. Be realistic, it's simply not going to happen, this is the fantasy of the Tripartite Wage Committee, not the final decision. I'd guess that an increase to 350 Baht on average is more likely to be the outcome, just a 10% increase or so. 

[Mr Meeseeks]

31 minutes ago, Pravda said:

My wife works in the auto industry. Thai factories can't pay these wages. The bigger problem is they will have a lot of trouble recruiting sales staff as now the starting salary for people with university degrees will be on par with every minimum wage job. I know these are still low wages, but this is not how the world works. They increased the minimum wage in Canada and now there is more poverty than ever due to astronomical real estate prices and high grocery prices. 

 

Yamaha is dumping everything in Thailand except the motorbike business by 2023.

Correct, this will never happen.

 

An increase of 5-10% is more feasible but even then...

[tgw]

36 minutes ago, Pravda said:

My wife works in the auto industry. Thai factories can't pay these wages. The bigger problem is they will have a lot of trouble recruiting sales staff as now the starting salary for people with university degrees will be on par with every minimum wage job. I know these are still low wages, but this is not how the world works. They increased the minimum wage in Canada and now there is more poverty than ever due to astronomical real estate prices and high grocery prices. 

 

Yamaha is dumping everything in Thailand except the motorbike business by 2023.

correct.

subsidizing food, housing, etc. is way better than rising the minimum wage because it will not unbalance the economy.

[Saanim]

29 minutes ago, cyril sneer said:

probably be required to work double the hours if approved

What's the nonsense? Perhaps it could be a surprise for you that for overtime the company has to pay +50%, for Sundays and holidays +100%. 

[Saanim]

If something like that would happen (492 Baht), then bye bye the cheap prices in Walmart and Amazon...

[Henryford]

So all Thai workers will get at least 15,000 a month (even 7/11, bars etc), ha ha in their dreams.

[zyphodb]

Out here in Isaan, the wage for a days slaving in the fields is 250 Bht, the same as it's been for the last 10 years. Try living on that...

[tingtong]

4 hours ago, ezzra said:

Its comes out to 62 baht an hour, even a slave laborer get paid more than that, and with the rise in the essential commodities and fuel prices lately, hardly cover the bare minimum...

True, it is low, but probably overdramatic.

 

"About 9.2% of the world, or 689 million people, live in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 a day, according to the World Bank"

 

62 baht an hour is about 8x that...

for context.

 

by no means I say it is lots of money! Just a bigger reality.

[sscc]

1 hour ago, Pravda said:

My wife works in the auto industry. Thai factories can't pay these wages. The bigger problem is they will have a lot of trouble recruiting sales staff as now the starting salary for people with university degrees will be on par with every minimum wage job. I know these are still low wages, but this is not how the world works. They increased the minimum wage in Canada and now there is more poverty than ever due to astronomical real estate prices and high grocery prices. 

 

Yamaha is dumping everything in Thailand except the motorbike business by 2023.

 

What applies to Canada hardly applies to Thailand. 

No point doing the reference.

[sscc]

1 hour ago, kevin612 said:

I doubt it, probably 360-380 baht per day if approved.

Right.   I hope the final decision is  around 400 B  per day. 

 

[2 is 1]

1 hour ago, zyphodb said:

Out here in Isaan, the wage for a days slaving in the fields is 250 Bht, the same as it's been for the last 10 years. Try living on that...

I have always paid that 300 bth/day + 1 food/day + they Lao Khao. So close 400 bth/ day/ man.

[trainman34014]

1 hour ago, zyphodb said:

Out here in Isaan, the wage for a days slaving in the fields is 250 Bht, the same as it's been for the last 10 years. Try living on that...

And more and more machines are being brought in which means less jobs all round !

 

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, tingtong said:

True, it is low, but probably overdramatic.

 

"About 9.2% of the world, or 689 million people, live in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 a day, according to the World Bank"

 

62 baht an hour is about 8x that...

for context.

 

by no means I say it is lots of money! Just a bigger reality.

So let’s set what is acceptable by the poverty in failed states.

[Chomper Higgot]

Perhaps a starting point would be to determine what current wages are.

 

Around us the going rate for gardeners, building labour is Bht500/day, for skilled building workers, brick layers, carpenters, electricians etc it’s Bht700~900 a day.

 

I suspect anyone with options is already earning over Bht500/day, but of course people in provincial villages shackled to debt might not be able to get a decent pay, especially if working for their lender.

 

 

[Bluespunk]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

The move, still to be formally approved by the government, would see the daily wage increase from between 313 and 336 baht to a new flat rate of 492 baht.

Good. Still not enough but definitely moving forward. 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Bluespunk

[Pravda]

1 hour ago, sscc said:

 

What applies to Canada hardly applies to Thailand. 

No point doing the reference.

Noted

[stigar]

My lady makes 4-8000 bath a day.She have a nice hair salon.She pay the workers 350 bath a day +free meals.She pay them daily.They also get a 10.000 bath bonus on new year.

[skorp13]

Why 492? Why not just go for the extra 8 baht and call it 500?. I just had 2 guys come around to clean an aircon, 400 baht and no out of pocket expenses for them. Was worth it! How many do they do per day?

[khunPer]

Last time a Thai government made a high raise in minimum wages - from 200 baht a day to 300 baht a day - prices increased soon after the wage increase; some workers even complained that they could buy more for their money before the minimum wage was increased.

 

Smaller steps of wage increases might not result in a high price hike.

 

A better way might be demand and supply. News media have reported about employers that are willing to pay double or even more of the minimum wage for skilled workers. But to negotiate wages "privately" - i.e. not at government level - might need strong, or stronger, labor unions.

 

In a way a high hike of minimum wage seems like kind of vote buying or government populism here and now, which on little longer term might not be a benefit for the low paid workers...????

 

Even you may think that 335 baht or 392 baht a day is a very low wage, which it is when converted to a Western country's money and compared, but that doesn't unveil buying power, which is difficult to compare due to different life styles.

 

If we for comparison instead look at a local produced product that is the same all over the World, we can look at chicken eggs; i.e. how many eggs can you buy for you salary after income tax.

 

I'll compare to my home country Denmark, which is one of the few countries without government set minimums wages, but wages fully negotiated by the partners on the work market, i.e. employers and mainly labor unions, called "The Danish Model". Denmark is also a high wage country, among the very highest in the World, and also number one in income taxation; and note that people on minimum wage don't pay income tax in Thailand, but they do in Denmark.

 

A Danish minimum wage is in the level of 20,000 dkk (Danish kroner) per month, after income tax it's in average 13,000 dkk (income tax is slightly depending of which area/community you live in), no labor union fee and unemployment insurance deducted.

 

A Thai minimum wage is by now in the level of 8,250 baht per month, with the new higher minimum wage it will be 12,300 baht per month, both with no social security deducted.

 

One egg in a Danish supermarket at the moment costs around 2.50 dkk (the more expensive organics eggs are 3 dkk each), one egg in a Thai supermarket costs 3 baht (Lotus's sells 30 eggs for 90 baht at the moment).

 

So a Danish worker on minimum wage can buy 5,200 egg for one months salary.

 

A Thai worker on minimum wage can buy 2,750 egg for one month's salary, which makes the Danish worker have only 89 percent higher income - you would probably had expected it was more...

 

Take into comparison that Thailand has a lower level of basic school education and in general is in the lower level of income, compared to Denmark that is the very top.

 

Comparing minimum salaries in currency, however paints a different image, i.e. 8,250 baht equals $250, while 13,000 dkk equals $2,000, here the Danish worker has a 700 percent higher income.

 

The new high minimum wage of 12,300 baht per month, will - if the price of eggs don't increase - equal a buying power for 4,100 eggs. If the eggs price - and other prices - increase, the buying power of the wage increase is lower.

 

A huge minimum wage increase might boost inflation, which is not good if it become more the 2 percent year-to-year, according to the financial experts. We are close to the 2 percent year-to-year at the moment, if you disregard the Covid pandemic price drop. From 31st December 2019 till 31st December 2021 the Thai consumer price index increase was 1.89 percent, i.e. around 1 percent per year. End of January 2022 it peaked by adding another percentage. Consumer price index is an average, if you look isolated at diesel oil and pork meat, the picture is of course very different...????