Wage Increase In Thailand Begins To Bite

[frankold]

and five of the 6 will be playing games on their smart phones or texting. I will never understand Thai employers.

A lot of these excess employees are members of the family that owns the small business. Better than having them laying around the house doing the same thing, watching tv or sleeping. It's similar to Laos - Vientiane anyway.

Tesco, big c, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc... Must have really really big families

Home pro is unbelievable.

7/11's are pretty impressive sometimes too. I've counted 8 staff in one before with a single counter open.

[Tomtomtom69]

and five of the 6 will be playing games on their smart phones or texting. I will never understand Thai employers.

I agree. And on another somewhat related matter, I will never understand the age discrimination thing. Why does every company have to consist of 20 young, attractive girls aged between like 22 and 33 or something like that, with scarcely a male employee or an older person in sight? Sure, I like seeing young Thai women as much as the next guy, but realistically, we can't all stay young and we have to be fair towards older workers too and ensure some diversity in the workplace. In many other countries you work with all sorts of people of different ages and backgrounds. In Thailand you have tons of young women and perhaps 1 old western expat overlooking the whole operation. OK, perhaps this is the ideal office environment for any male expat! But seriously though, tossing an experienced individual aside just because they have reached the grand old age of 40 or 45 is hellishly stupid and grossly unfair.

Edited January 4, 2013 by Tomtomtom69

[Choonpon]

With increasing unemployment, crime rate will go up too. Beware guys, specially non-thais.

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[MaiChai]

This minimum wage will cause a spike in inflation. Everything will go up in price and the baht will loose some value.

For some years now, Thailand has not been the cheap manufacturing base it had a reputation for. Infact its moved up a notch as it can offer a better educated workforce than the cheapest locations. However the education level still lies lower than India/Phillipines/Indonesia, so Thailand is somewhere between, which works for now, but will become a problem when the costs become too high or cheap foreign labour is no longer available.

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[hellodolly]

$10.00 a day? Outrageous.

One can comfortably live off of that in Thailand - especially if you're Thai, which is more than can be said for the American minimum wage which ends up being about 1200B a day after taxes.

Do you honestly believe this. If you sit in the country and farm your own food it may barely be feasible. You might eak out av existence in a slum shanty hut, and not starve. What is the cheapest rental accommodation in any city these days, 2000 baht?, 3 meals a day 150 baht.

Comfortably live. What a statement.

If you knew what was comfortable for a Thai you might have a different opinion. All you know is your own comfortable zone. You see others living in far less pretensions accommodation and take a condensation attitude to them.

What about where the two employes live that no longer have a job at the 7/11 I go to. They have no income now.

My mother in law lives in what you would deem as uncomfterble housing. She is happy there. For myself it is a very uncomfortable housing situation. I pay for it and am willing to do better but she likes it.

I will not force my idea on her or try to tell you what is acceptable to a Thai and what is not.

[Moruya]

Just like the other similar thread on this the part of the equation that everyone is leaving out is the corporate tax rates went from 30 to 23 percent which in most cases, and why corporation supported the scheme, is more than the increase in wages for the corporations.

So the idea and comments about how the corps. are somehow suffereing or need to make changes is simply factually incorect propoganda mostly promoted by companys that are simply not doing well for other reasons.

The rate drops to 20 percent in 2013

In order to tax profits you first need a profit.

[Chupup]

Pakorn promised that his department would help laid-off workers claim the compensation and benefits to which they were entitled.

I can't wait to hear what those compensation and benefits exist of.

Me to, we are STILL waiting for compensation payments for the last 18 months, my M I L is 70 + and gets 500bht a month, can't see the SSO paying any more than that,

[Thai at Heart]

$10.00 a day? Outrageous.

One can comfortably live off of that in Thailand - especially if you're Thai, which is more than can be said for the American minimum wage which ends up being about 1200B a day after taxes.

Do you honestly believe this. If you sit in the country and farm your own food it may barely be feasible. You might eak out av existence in a slum shanty hut, and not starve. What is the cheapest rental accommodation in any city these days, 2000 baht?, 3 meals a day 150 baht.

Comfortably live. What a statement.

If you knew what was comfortable for a Thai you might have a different opinion. All you know is your own comfortable zone. You see others living in far less pretensions accommodation and take a condensation attitude to them.

What about where the two employes live that no longer have a job at the 7/11 I go to. They have no income now.

My mother in law lives in what you would deem as uncomfterble housing. She is happy there. For myself it is a very uncomfortable housing situation. I pay for it and am willing to do better but she likes it.

I will not force my idea on her or try to tell you what is acceptable to a Thai and what is not.

What has a wage got to do with an opinion. It us your interpretation as to whether she is comfortable or not.

If you believe 300 makes for comfortable that's up to you, i think one could barely subsist. As for forcing an opinion, what is anyone to do, tell them not to feel comfortable?

They don't need a foreign opinion to know whether they have enough to live comfortably or not. If life us so comfortable, maybe they should cut the minimum wage then?

Edited January 5, 2013 by Thai at Heart

[Ricardo]

Pakorn promised that his department would help laid-off workers claim the compensation and benefits to which they were entitled.

I can't wait to hear what those compensation and benefits exist of.

Me to, we are STILL waiting for compensation payments for the last 18 months, my M I L is 70 + and gets 500bht a month, can't see the SSO paying any more than that,

I'm told that the old-age-allowance rises with age ?

What all those 80-year-old do, with their massive extra 100B/200B per-month, is a mystery ... party or foreign-travel I suppose !

A friend of my wife was in a wheelchair for a couple of years, following a car-crash where the drivers' insurance ran-out before all her medical-bills had been covered, she claimed it cost more for the taxi to get to the office where she claimed her disability-allowance, than she received from the government !

[Maseratimartin]

300bath? ....out in the country I do not get any helper under 400bath for some easy paint job!

Now people are surprised that it bites them in the ass?

Sure if I do have to pay more I will limit the time to pay more expensive staff!

I see also another change....machines....when before people would bring in the rice or corn...you see now more and more of the nice new KUBOTA machines....hello...!

Bye bye tradition....welcome capitalism!

[Thait Spot]

and five of the 6 will be playing games on their smart phones or texting. I will never understand Thai employers.

A lot of these excess employees are members of the family that owns the small business. Better than having them laying around the house doing the same thing, watching tv or sleeping. It's similar to Laos - Vientiane anyway.

Tesco, big c, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc... Must have really really big families

Home pro is unbelievable.

Hundreds of the buggers either chatting in a huddle or waiting to pounce and when you ask them a question they don't know the answer.

That said they are happy and try to be helpful

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[hawker9000]

A good way to look at the fundamental error in the "raise the minimum wage" discussion is to make a reductio ad absurdum: if you can BY FIAT set a minimum wage then why not set it to 600 baht an hour so everyone can have a nice home and car? Why not 1,000? 10,000? (So everyone can buy a Mercedes!) Because, very quickly, product and service charges will rise to cover those costs ... and a loaf of bread will go for thousands of baht.

A minimum wage of 10,000 baht / hour might sound silly - but then so is 300. Just a smaller amount - but the results will be / must be the same. Just on a smaller, slower, scale so hopefully people won't notice what's happening.

So, raising the minimum wage without at the same time imposing sweeping price controls is meaningless ... and heaven help any country that tries that. Oh, wait a minute! Isn't that the basis for Marxism? Haven't we seen how well Communist societies fared in the 20th Century? "To each according to his needs" - whether or not you can pay for it! "From each according to his abilities" - whether or not your abilities have any value to the society or ultimate consumer. And exactly WHO is determining what YOU need? What YOUR abilities are?

But wouldn't a utopia be nice anyway?

(Just for comparison, minimum wage in U.K. is 300b/h, U.S. is 225b/h. Both of which having much higher costs of living than here.)

That's why it's called "populism". No one ever said it works, but it IS popular with the unthinking, uncaring, unknowing, self-motivated masses & labor unions. Everyone eventually finds out the hard way what (or I should say WHO) and what/who works and what/who doesn't...

Edited January 5, 2013 by hawker9000

[Mosha]

$10.00 a day? Outrageous.

One can comfortably live off of that in Thailand - especially if you're Thai, which is more than can be said for the American minimum wage which ends up being about 1200B a day after taxes.

Do you honestly believe this. If you sit in the country and farm your own food it may barely be feasible. You might eak out av existence in a slum shanty hut, and not starve. What is the cheapest rental accommodation in any city these days, 2000 baht?, 3 meals a day 150 baht.

Comfortably live. What a statement.

My wife and I probably eat for less than that. 1 plastic bag of food for about 30 Baht. We would by 3 of those if it was a regular thing. I doubt that that 300 baht is the families sole income.

[Teddy3943]

Many will lose their jobs and the others who stay behind will have to work harder. The quality of products come under pressure.

While the dismissed spend less and the workes spend a little more, the average outcome for the economy is nill.

Only more people will suffer and the products getting more expensive.

It's the wrong way to start. Start with improving education en higher quality of products, then the price and salary can follow automatically.

[mccw]

and five of the 6 will be playing games on their smart phones or texting. I will never understand Thai employers.

I agree. And on another somewhat related matter, I will never understand the age discrimination thing. Why does every company have to consist of 20 young, attractive girls aged between like 22 and 33 or something like that, with scarcely a male employee or an older person in sight? Sure, I like seeing young Thai women as much as the next guy, but realistically, we can't all stay young and we have to be fair towards older workers too and ensure some diversity in the workplace. In many other countries you work with all sorts of people of different ages and backgrounds. In Thailand you have tons of young women and perhaps 1 old western expat overlooking the whole operation. OK, perhaps this is the ideal office environment for any male expat! But seriously though, tossing an experienced individual aside just because they have reached the grand old age of 40 or 45 is hellishly stupid and grossly unfair.

By the time they are that old they have a few kids to work for them and give them money? I bet almost all those young ladies give at least 10-20% of thier salary away.

[Ricardo]

Hundreds of the buggers either chatting in a huddle or waiting to pounce and when you ask them a question they don't know the answer.

That said they are happy and try to be helpful

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I believe it was Keith Waterhouse, in a book called 'Office Life', who posited a world where workers were employed in very-bureaucratic government-owned companies whose only function was to take the unwanted/unemployed off the jobless-list.

Effectively the administrative-functions had expanded to totally drive out the productive-ones. The companies overall did absolutely nothing, but the employees were all kept fully-occupied, and never realised this !

Edited January 7, 2013 by Ricardo