Bts & Mrt - Employment Advice?

[TheGhostWithin]

Hi all,

Please feel free to suggest / move my post, if I have posted on the incorrect forum - I have posted here as the nature of my work is predominantly within Bangkok only.

I work as a Train Controller (train dispatcher, in the USA) in New Zealand overseeing heavy-traffic flow metro and freight services (services every 90 seconds spanning 3 lines). My partner is Thai, and will join me for the next year here in NZ to gain some experience in western workplaces and maybe an additional extra year to expand her education. In the long term (1-2 years from now), we both hope to return to Thailand and have a good life and maybe start a family (no negative lectures please, we are both happy with our relationship ). That is the plan!

What sort of qualifications do I need to perform my current role in Thailand? My partner spoke with BTS staff who were under the impression I would need an engineers degree to do my job in Thailand - I realize it is a well-paid, high-skills type job, but I do not have an engineers degree (my background is accounting/business management/surveillance) and I am already qualified, certified and performing the role here in New Zealand.

So, there is a good chance that either it is the Thai way of expecting every successful applicant to be over-qualified (understandable due to the employment situation there), OR that my partner was simply misinformed and there really are opportunities without me having to go back to university and complete the degree I stopped because of the role I am performing.. I am quite happy to go and study a degree, but it does seem pointless to study a degree which I will never use.. my job has little to do with engineering.

Also, though not so important as to getting into a role I'm actually happy doing, what sort of Salary could I expect? If I was really after money, I would already be in Australia on a 6 figure salary..

Interested to hear back from anyone with any insight or experience

[vpi78]

You have zero chance of working in that capacity in Thailand dude. You might have been able to consult as a trainer back years ago as these trains were being commissioned, e.g., through Siemens, but you bring no skill to the party that the Thais cannot perform themselves.

Try something else. English teaching seems to be popular, even by those that have never taught anywhere else.

[Ijustwannateach]

I had a friend at the station-manager level on the MRT, but he did not strike me as particularly well-to-do- lived on his own in a typical aging urban Thai one-room apartment. In fact, not too long after I met him he was head-hunted away to do the same kind of work in another country for much more money.

Partly because of being burned many times, many positions in Thailand require extensive documentation about qualifications- and usually an on-the-spot test(s) of your abilities and experience, too. I'm sorry to say that it would be my guess that unless you have specific abilities related to the equipment now being used- specialist repair knowledge or something like that which locally trained Thais could not reasonably be expected to acquire in the short term- it would be unlikely that you would seem a good prospect considering the (guaranteed) prospects of your being more of a bureacratic problem in terms of hiring a foreigner and the (likely) prospects of underemployment issues upon hiring if paid the same as they could pay a Thai national.

Good luck, though, and let us know what you find out.

[gregb]

Out of curiosity, how would you anticipate doing that job without speaking fluent Thai?

I mean, I can just imagine the situation if you notice a serious problem and you are unable to communicate with the operator of a train to issue him instructions.

I really think that it is a low probability you will ever qualify for a job in this area. Beyond not having any Thai language skills, work permits are only issued for foreigners who possess skills the locals do not have or do not have in sufficient quantity. Exactly what skill is it that you have, which you believe a Thai national does not have? Perhaps an engineering degree from a prestigious foreign university may be the minimum qualification you need to get over that hurdle.

[lomatopo]

Thailand is spitting out ~ 350,000 college graduates each year, and the economy needs about 165,000. (And, a lot of those are in technical, software and engineering disciplines.) That should tell you something about the labor market here. What they really need here is cheap construction labor to build out all the new metro rail lines, they can't find enough and are looking to Myanmar for cheap labor.

I think the OP would be better off in Australia earning six figures. The Thai partner might enjoy OZ? Then retire to Thailand.