52,000 Thai Workers Lose Jobs From Minimum Wage Hike

[webfact]

52,000 Thai workers lose jobs from minimum wage hike

By English News

BANGKOK, Feb 12 – More than 52,000 employees under Thailand's social security scheme have applied for unemployment benefits due to losing their jobs in the wake of the country's minimum wage hike, Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsub said.

newsjsHe said the figure of 52,426 jobless former employees was compiled from Jan 1 to Feb 4. The daily minimum wage of Bt300 was implemented nationwide Jan 1.

He said the Social Security Fund had paid about Bt1.13 billion to the unemployed workers.

Among the workers affected, 3,735 were laid off, 10,989 resigned, 484 were not entitled to social security fund assistance, and 34,408 had yet to be formally notified of their employment termination by their employers. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2013-02-12

[Thai at Heart]

34,408 had yet to be formally notified of their employment termination by their employers.

Huh?

[scotto]

The 34,408 are just waiting to get their marching orders all this in just 1 month

hate to see how many are unemployed in 6 months time

[laurentbkk]

in the mean time we are looking for workers and cannot find any .. how silly is that ?

[Pimay1]

Only one month and they paid Bt1.13 billion? That's Bt13.56 per year and that does not include the poor souls that are not notified yet they will soon be on the streets.

[Mosha]

"More than 52,000 employees under Thailand's social security scheme have applied for unemployment benefits due to losing their jobs in the wake of the country's minimum wage hike, Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsub said."

How many outside the social security scheme have lost their jobs?

[noob7]

Just wondering, who is doing the work of all this people, now.

Illegals?

No one?

But it's just to expect.

In the western world, a rise in minimum salary is affecting jobs from the minority of people, only

In Thailand, it is affecting the majority of all employeed people.

And with the price rally, it is affecting everyone in the kingdome!

[noob7]

"More than 52,000 employees under Thailand's social security scheme have applied for unemployment benefits due to losing their jobs in the wake of the country's minimum wage hike, Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsub said."

How many outside the social security scheme have lost their jobs?

I would say, many more jobs are now available, outside the social security scheme!

[TomTao]

How many more will become unemployed as SMEs fold?

[h90]

in the mean time we are looking for workers and cannot find any .. how silly is that ?

Same same here.....and even worse with skilled worker

[luudee]

I have not been using Thai workers for over 5 years

now ... imported workers work harder, are more reliable

and cheaper ....

[3zie]

Send them to Khon Kaen. We are hiring another 100 sewing operators for first 6 months to start with and another 100 over the period of the next 2 years

[waza]

More of the PTP economic miracle.........

[Payboy]

Send them to Khon Kaen. We are hiring another 100 sewing operators for first 6 months to start with and another 100 over the period of the next 2 years

Any special skills required? Sewing maybe?

[GarryP]

Hey, I think we're on to something here. You know that there is a shortfall of recruits for the army and they are looking to include people who have gone through the cadets in the annual conscription procees to make up for the shortfall, well here you have the answer. Recruit all terminated workers under 30 years of age in the army.

[h90]

I have not been using Thai workers for over 5 years

now ... imported workers work harder, are more reliable

and cheaper ....

I have some very perfect Thai workers, but don't ask me how many we had hired and fired till we got 3 good one.

[zappalot]

in the mean time we are looking for workers and cannot find any .. how silly is that ?

Same same here.....and even worse with skilled worker

Are there skilled workers in the kingdom? It seems we missed something....

[Robbie Dye]

I like the bit that 20% resigned, presumably because their bosses refused to put the wages up. I am personally aware of a small Thai business refusing to comply because of the tea money they have to pay the local fuzz for their illegal immigrant staff means they cant afford to. They jammed their pricesup too tho.

[JohanBKK]

Just wondering, who is doing the work of all this people, now.

Illegals?

No one?

But it's just to expect.

In the western world, a rise in minimum salary is affecting jobs from the minority of people, only

In Thailand, it is affecting the majority of all employeed people.

And with the price rally, it is affecting everyone in the kingdome!

That's not true, in France almost everyone has the minimum salary.

[rubl]

Although the numbers seem to be low, the workers effected are those who were supposed to be helped by the raise of the minimum wage it would seem.

Still rest assured, dear public, all those working now do get their 300 Baht a day. By law, promise, boy scout's honour, and so

[Eddythekid]

this is all rubbish

[hellodolly]

in the mean time we are looking for workers and cannot find any .. how silly is that ?

Care to fill us in on what your wants are.

Would discharged 7/11 employes fill the slots you are looking to fill or are you looking for rocket scientists.

You really have nothing meaningful in your statement. Give some tips on what you are looking for.

[hellodolly]

Send them to Khon Kaen. We are hiring another 100 sewing operators for first 6 months to start with and another 100 over the period of the next 2 years

Any special skills required? Sewing maybe?

Are you planing on a training program for the rice paddy workers.

[hellodolly]

I like the bit that 20% resigned, presumably because their bosses refused to put the wages up. I am personally aware of a small Thai business refusing to comply because of the tea money they have to pay the local fuzz for their illegal immigrant staff means they cant afford to. They jammed their pricesup too tho.

I would venture to say there is a lot of people who will not receive the hike in pay. Some thing the Thai government will silently slip under the rug.

[jamhar]

The market will adjust.

but a potentially dangerous precident. TL needs to attract more maufacturing companies. Those companes would spur more youth to get better education. and a better educated population would attract more business. Thats the way to inrease minimum wage. Not an arbiturary raise with no business push to back it up.

just my 2 cents

and its not worth even that much

[noob7]

Just wondering, who is doing the work of all this people, now.

Illegals?

No one?

But it's just to expect.

In the western world, a rise in minimum salary is affecting jobs from the minority of people, only

In Thailand, it is affecting the majority of all employeed people.

And with the price rally, it is affecting everyone in the kingdome!

That's not true, in France almost everyone has the minimum salary.

But that minimum salary is not rising by 30% in a year. It get checked year by year and corrected 'nit noi'.

Actually, it's even higher per hour, than in Thailand per day.

Also I'm pretty sure, that 'almost everyone has the minimum salary' does include all the people, who earn 'a bit' more, as 9.4€/h

Edited February 12, 2013 by noob7

[monkeycountry]

"More than 52,000 employees under Thailand's social security scheme have applied for unemployment benefits due to losing their jobs in the wake of the country's minimum wage hike, Labour Minister Phadermchai Sasomsub said."

How many outside the social security scheme have lost their jobs?

I am guessing not many, as if they are outside the system, then they are also outside the 300 baht minimum wage regulations. Ie. the employer can pay whatever he/she wants.

[Payboy]

Send them to Khon Kaen. We are hiring another 100 sewing operators for first 6 months to start with and another 100 over the period of the next 2 years

Any special skills required? Sewing maybe?

Are you planing on a training program for the rice paddy workers.

Nah, just asking because I don't think 3zie wants 52000 workers showing up at this door with nothing but facebook and twitter skills.

[Eddythekid]

Sorry - I hit the return key, what I wanted to add was, do the maths and you'll see this is just bogus political crap.

Firstly the typical working class Thai worker earned 200bt per day for a typical 8hr day (that's 25bt per hr), Well there was always a minimum wage in Thailand, it was in force during Taksin era it was 26bt/hr - remember in a publicity stunt his daughter went to work there straight from education. Now there has been no stipulation on the length of the working day, so leaving employers wide open to just increase the working day to say 12hrs, hey-prestow 300bt a day achieved, for the same volume of work per baht.

Now let's look at the other holes in this report. Forget that his so accurate figures (right down to single digits) don't add up to 52,426 (that was probably a calculator error) how can someone officially (34,000) claim for benefits when they haven't been made aware of their unemployment status? The unemployment benefit scheme is a private insurance policy all workers should pay into (I doubt it's really private - just another way for politicians to line their pockets), they cannot claim from it unless they were made redundant, therefore the 11,000 that resigned are also not entitled to benefits. So now we are left with the mere figure of 3,735 that are entitled to benefits. The policy states that in case of accident or redundancy the policy will pay your registered salary for upto 12wks (less in some circumstances) so if these people were laid off due to min.wage lets give a bogus over-the-top figure like 6k p/m, and we must assume from the way this is written the 1.13bn is solely a cost set against these 3,735 who are now claiming benefits, that means each person has received 302,000bt in their first month of unemployment, whereas a more realistic figure would be (6,000x3,735) 22.4m baht. As usual Thai politicians trying to sound like they're doing something yet all they're really doing is putting themselves on a world stage for the rest of us to see how dumb they really are look how many people are laughing!!

[Eddythekid]

sorry - again I should have read before hitting post - I missed out that Taksin's daughter went to worrk for McDonalds, who remembers that? 26bt minimum wage