After one of the slowest "rainy season" periods in my whole time doing the professional audio business in Thailand, the sales slump has broken. The flood gates have opened & it looks like everybody who has been "holding off" for whatever reasons have decided they can't wait any longer. Full sales book until the end of November & the mad rush to hire staff & train them is on.

Having greatly fluctuating sales due to seasonal buying & custom product manufacture, it obviously creates a major headache for production planning.

Just wondering how some other businesses who have seasonal fluctuations in their sales patterns go about finding skilled & trained labor on short notice? Any other advice on seasonal businesses in the manufacturing sector would be much appreciated as well.

Cheers,

Soundman.

our business always picks up when our customers start exporting like crazy....

The hotel/hospitality business is well-known for having low and high seasons. Luckily, my hotel caters for airport commuters and we are not really affected by a low season. Whereas other hotels lay off staff in the low season, I maintain the same level of staff. In any case, since all staff are from my wife's family, the business is considered a family business and everyone is happy to 'muck' in with whatever is required. So if there are no customers on one day, then the driver will do the gardening, or the cook will do some decorating!

Simon

In the factory the work isn't seasonal but is affected by other factories offering extra BHT an hour more. The last factory I was at is in a rural area & not industrial at all. There was a well known shoe factory virtually next door which led both factories to have a pact that we would not poach each others staff. What happened to us was the industrial site of Ayyuthaya would recruit from our area because of lack of human resources in the Ayyuthaya area. They would lay on transport to & from the factory offer higher wages thus we couldn't compete. We were left with what nobody else wanted. Re training this type of person was more often than not a complete waste of time due to only turning up for work one week then just leave without notice of any sort.