Tourism Industry Worries About Labor Shortage

[george]

Tourism industry worries about labor shortage

PHUKET: -- The island’s tourism industry is suffering a shortage of skilled staff because many workers left the island during the slump after the tsunami, Dechar Peukpattanaruk, Chief of the Phuket Provincial Labor Office, said today.

He said that although many people are applying for the estimated 4,000 vacancies in Phuket’s tourism industry, very few of them have the appropriate qualifications or skills.

K. Dechar said that, with bookings now matching pre-tsunami levels, many tourism businesses in Phuket are becoming increasingly concerned about their ability to cater to tourists during the coming high season.

After the tsunami, many people working in tourism were laid off or resigned becauser there was no work. “But now Phuket is coming back, and the number of bookings is nearly the same as for the same period last year,” K. Dechar said.

Now, he explained , many hotels were having difficulty wooing back to Phuket former staff who had moved to other tourism destinations, including Koh Samui and Pattaya.

As a short-term strategy, he advised businesses suffering from a shortage of skilled staff to implement in-house training programs, and to boost links with with the educational institutions on the island and with the Phuket Provincial Skills Development Office.

For the long-term, K. Dechar said his office was working to ensure better correlation of the skills required in the workplace with those taught at universities and colleges.

--Phuket Gazette 2005-10-30

[makavelithedon]

Nicely spotted George,

Had to laugh at this when I saw it in the local paper. Having worked in numerous hotels etc teaching (so speaking from experience) and met some geat Thai people in the process. I had to say I was glad and somewhat hopeful many of the people who used to work the 6 day 10-12 hour shift for a pittance pre-Tsunami have moved elsewhere and found something a little better.

I feel no symapthy for an industry that it is on the whole owned by individual Thai's motivated by nothing but an appalling appetite for monetary greed, who pay the absolute minimum, twist and abuse every member of staff who doesn't leave for their 4th hotel in a year, and anything else they can get away with, earn lottery type money in the high-season of which makes up for the low 10 times over and now can't get the supply of serfs they need!!!!Shame!!!!!!!

There are a few exceptions in the form of your 5* stuff that actually pay and treat there staff fairly well, but these are certainly the exception rather than the rule.

Pay peanuts get monkeys now then instead of pay peanuts abuse the skilled pre-Tsunami eh?

[thaigerd]

Nicely spotted George,

Had to laugh at this when I saw it in the local paper.  Having worked in numerous hotels etc teaching  (so speaking from experience) and met some geat Thai people in the process. I had to say I was glad and somewhat hopeful many of the people who used to work the 6 day 10-12 hour shift for a pittance pre-Tsunami have moved elsewhere and found something a little better.

I feel no symapthy for an industry that it is on the whole owned by individual Thai's motivated by nothing but an appalling appetite for monetary greed, who pay the absolute minimum, twist and abuse every member of staff who doesn't leave for their 4th hotel in a year, and anything else they can get away with, earn lottery type money in the high-season of which makes up for the low 10 times over and now can't get the supply of serfs they need!!!!Shame!!!!!!!

There are a few exceptions in the form of your 5* stuff that actually pay and treat there staff fairly well, but these are certainly the exception rather than the rule.

Pay peanuts get monkeys now then instead of pay peanuts abuse the skilled pre-Tsunami eh?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Congratulations !!!

You are absolutely right.

I am working more than 4 years here in Phuket and I must confirm, but it's not only Thai owners who are abusing and cheating their staff..........

Gerd

[bangkokian]

I visited Phuket a year before the tsunami, and was appalled to learn that waiters and waitresses were getting as low as 6000-8000 baht a month at four and five star hotels, considering that the cost of living in Phuket is rather high by Thai standards. I don't know what new posts former employees in Phuket have found for themselves, but i know of a former waiter in a hotel here in Bkk who has secured himself a job in a foreign cruise line, and is earning 60,ooo ++ baht a month.

I suppose cheap labor is a major attraction for local and foreign investors in Phuket.