I will soon be opening a shop in Pattaya. Does anyone please have any info about local salaries/working salaries for unskilled workers (shop assistants, cleaners, wait staff). I'm currently budgeting 5000bt per month for a 60 hour week for someone with very basic English skills. Is this sum realistic or will I have to pay more?

4000THB per month seems to be avg salaries for non-professionals.

i guess basic english skills r gonna cost more.....

the minimum daily wage for some provinces vary between 120 to 180 baht, this is towest permissible by law....

60 hour week seems waaaaay too long a work week!

and being paid only $125 a month for it seems surreally slavery-like!

do you think the average workers where you live are slaves? [i'm guessing America, because you seem to have used a 40baht/dollar conversion...]

Think of it in terms of rent - many basic rooms here are 2000 - 2500 a month to rent, and often, girls will share 2 to 4 to a room. So even renting a room by yourself [which is a "luxury"], you'd only have to work, say 11 or 12 days to pay your month's rent. How many days do you have to work to pay a month's rent on a condo in California?

[And food is cheaper here too, and...]

The legal Thai work week is 48 hours - but unlikely that employees will challenge this.

A basic principle of hiring employees in Thailand: If you pay them absolute minimum wage, they then understand this to mean that they are welcome to exploit every chance to cheat you and steal from you. You are trying to brutally exploit them, and they will return the favor. They do not in any way see their own interests as being parallel to those of the business itself.

Better to pay them at a level where their interests are served by making sure that the business makes a good profit.

Second point: If you pay <deleted> wages, you get a lot of turnover - the job is viewed as just a unpleasant stepping stone that had to be stepped on, in order to get to a serious job. Staff turnover is very stressful on the business owner - trust me. What can work, is to start employees at a marginal salary, but make sure they know that their salary will continually increase, if the business does well - and then follow-through on this commitment, if things do go well.

Good luck!

Steve Sykes

Managing Director

Indo-Siam Group

Bangkok

[email protected]

www.thaistartup.com

Skype: sykesbkk

In the situations where I have noticed that staff turnover is NOT high, the staff are usually making 8,000-10,000 a month (and usually have fairly good skills, like English-speaking, accounting, etc.) Often there's a probationary period where a lower salary is paid until the employee shows he/she is competent. Maybe you should pay 6K for the first 3 months, 8K for the next 6 months, and then go on some sort of raise system after that?

"Steven"

Salries are also dependant on the situation.

Service staff in bars/restaurants (NOT necesseraly naughty) might fetch lower salaries but this is made good by tips. In the better restaurants most waitresses make well over 10000 Baht/month eventhough they are paid only a basic salary of 6000 Baht.

In most shops there are no tips as such so expected salaries are higher.

Giving accomodation/food also can count as salary. You can redesign / decorate the upper floor from the shophouse for little expense and let your staff live there. Added advantage is you'll have less late coming staff etc...

The total package, combined with how much sanook(fun)the job is, will be what will make your employee decide if it's wortwhile to keep working for you!

We have never had a member of staff leave through unhappiness for the job, only sacked or leaving to relocate or marry.

The basic service wage is 4000bht per month but on average they earn 100bht every day on tips,

You might want to check out the statistics at the U.S. embassay in Bangkok for minimum wages, as a factual reference. Also a good reference is the country commercial guide. The latest release (2004) is hard to get for free but the early versions are also useful. You can download the Thailand Economic Database from the website below. Tab "Employment" is the data source.

http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/services/docs...rts/reports.htm

Last updated June 2004.

Minimum Wage (Baht/day)

(Effective Date) 08 Dec 03

Phuket 168

Bangkok and 5 provinces (Samut Prakarn, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom, and Samut Sakorn) 170

Chonburi 153

Chiang Mai, Nakorn Ratchasima, Phang Nga, Ranong, and Saraburi 145

Ang Thong 138

Chachoengsao 140

Singburi and Narathiwat 136

The rest of the country 133