http://www.automotiveworld.com/news/emergi...to-rehire-1-000

its a bit prematue to suggest Thailands economy may have " hit the bottom "

until the remaining 4,000 have also been reinstated ............

About 5,000 workers have been recently laid off in the city of Rayong, Thailand

http://www.just-auto.com/article.aspx?id=98225

I partially disagree Midas (of course ), to reinstate 4000 would mean that the manufacturers would be back to the same level of capacity as they were just prior to the crash, which would imply that a full recovery had occurred, which is obviously not the case. People hiring again and orders picking up are certainly better signs than what was happening 3 months ago, so if not at the bottom yet the decline certainly seems to be slowing.

Quite a number of my manufacturing clients also cut shifts and laid off temps during Q1 to sell their inventories, in light of poor order pipelines, but since late April/early May, many of these firms have started to reinstate two shifts in order to keep pace with new order flows, which grew faster than predicted (but still not back to pre crisis levels) so these cases are certainly not limited to the auto industry, (I have seen this in electronics, steel, and industrial materials sectors). From personal business experience, we have also sold quite a few factories recently to entirely new operators to Thailand, and these are not small operations either, there has even been some existing manufacturers who have increased their investments in the country. This may not be reflective of the overall economy but its certainly not all doom and gloom out there.

Have we reached a bottom? I don't know. I doubt it, many sectors of economy are still awful (tourism, residential etc), and that does not seem likely to drastically change any time soon but some sectors definitely seem to be fairing better, all we can say with any certainty is that most people will only know where the bottom is with hindsight.

I partially disagree Midas (of course ), to reinstate 4000 would mean that the manufacturers would be back to the same level of capacity as they were just prior to the crash, which would imply that a full recovery had occurred, which is obviously not the case. People hiring again and orders picking up are certainly better signs than what was happening 3 months ago, so if not at the bottom yet the decline certainly seems to be slowing.

Quite a number of my manufacturing clients also cut shifts and laid off temps during Q1 to sell their inventories, in light of poor order pipelines, but since late April/early May, many of these firms have started to reinstate two shifts in order to keep pace with new order flows, which grew faster than predicted (but still not back to pre crisis levels) so these cases are certainly not limited to the auto industry, (I have seen this in electronics, steel, and industrial materials sectors). From personal business experience, we have also sold quite a few factories recently to entirely new operators to Thailand, and these are not small operations either, there has even been some existing manufacturers who have increased their investments in the country. This may not be reflective of the overall economy but its certainly not all doom and gloom out there.

Have we reached a bottom? I don't know. I doubt it, many sectors of economy are still awful (tourism, residential etc), and that does not seem likely to drastically change any time soon but some sectors definitely seem to be fairing better, all we can say with any certainty is that most people will only know where the bottom is with hindsight.

That is all i said.

The rest of what you say is just the same " green shoots " stuff they pump out on CNBC every day.............

Except that's its first hand experience that I am profiting handsomely from