Thailand to Scrap Nationwide Minimum Wage

[rijit]

Higher wages do have their downsides. Sometimes it is better to make a lower wage than nothing at all.

Shame to see Thailand losing lots of investment and jobs to neighboring countries because of a vote raising scheme.

downside's,, yeah like being able to pay your bills, send you kids to school not having to rely/ delve into corruption to feed your kids you ever driven a round the backwaters of udon,, they are totally piss poor maybe on a par with Indian villages i've been to, tbh shocked the f-- out of me living in the relative wealth of central bangkok .

and i think you'll find people like Honda prefer a market where they dont get accused of slave labor, and all very well sitting in a nice 'situaton' quoting whats happened in Australia, were not talking outrageous figures here 10 us a day 6 sterling 12 Australian dollars <deleted>, not fortune even in Thailand. if a business cant afford 2 pay 6 £ a day then really should it be there? Tbh, if Thailand wants to move on out of a corruption torn economy/society and advance its palate , not stay at the bottom of the chain its got to learn and put into practice that rewards produce better results,not visa versa give them out so the families can afford to send their kids to school get a head start on local economies, not compete in crap barely profitable markets subsistence markets and basically realize that it's assets are its worker force not the company.

tbh ;i've been a supporter of the coup, ut this IMO stands to be a huge mistake and puts the 'image' and the lonfg term prosperity and possibly the peace of the thailand thats he's hoping to nurture

My wife told me sometimes you have to let the peasants know they are peasants. I can see her point.

Which is ' fine' if you want to stay with a feudalistic society, you want to move a country/society/ business to progress on then not.

[MeanUncleBuck]

Too many of you are only looking at this from one point of view, the employee that makes the minimum wage. If I own a company and there is no minimum wage I can pay my employees what I think they are with and deserve based upon my revenues. Now suppose I pay worker A 550 baht/day and worker B only 300/day because he does not work as hard or as well as A. Suddenly the government imposes a 400 baht/day minimum wage; my wages have increased but my revenues have not. In order to pay all my workers who are currently making less than 400 baht/day I will likely have to cut the pay of the workers making more than the minimum to be able to keep costs the same. How are those workers going to feel about making less so that the workers that do less get more money? The other side of this is that I fire some of the weaker workers so I can maintain my current payroll which means I how employ fewer workers and the fired ones have no income.

Your good intentions of providing everyone with a basic standard of living isn't helping those fired workers, is it? I am sure they would be happy with the wage they were making before the government inserted it's nose into their business.

[wolfmanjack]

Guy's they are not scrapping the minimum wage ( there has been minimum wage since 1972) they are scrapping the national part and making it by province ( same as it was before Yingluck)

It may actually lead to a higher minimum in higher cost areas! And probably lower in lower cost areas.

Also any one else notice the Permanent guys name Silpa-Archer. One of slippery eels family!!!!

That's the way I read it.

When the 300 baht minimum wage was introduced, people in Bangkok were already at least at 300 baht per day, so they saw no increase in their daily wage, but people in the outer provinces suddenly received 50% or more increases. Bonus.

...and when prices inevitably went up, the provinces did ok, but Bangkokians, with higher cost of living lost out by comparison.

This rethink is probably a good thing. One size does not fit all.

After all, it was just a knee-jerk populist policy aimed at the masses to buy votes...

The people who work on the rice farms in my wife's village outside of Surin did not receive the payrise, they were told 200 baht a day, take it or leave it, and they took it because they needed it.

I am sure that was the trend throughout Issan.

If they got 200 baht a day they did not get the minimum wage but they did get a pay raise. The rice field workers around me were only getting 100 baht a day before the increase. To top it off the workers i was paying 200-250 baht a day took time off from work to go work in the rice fields for 100 baht a day. The sanook of the party after they harvested the rice was more of an incentive to them than the extra 100 -150 baht a day they were getting from me.

[rijit]

Too many of you are only looking at this from one point of view, the employee that makes the minimum wage. If I own a company and there is no minimum wage I can pay my employees what I think they are with and deserve based upon my revenues. Now suppose I pay worker A 550 baht/day and worker B only 300/day because he does not work as hard or as well as A. Suddenly the government imposes a 400 baht/day minimum wage; my wages have increased but my revenues have not. In order to pay all my workers who are currently making less than 400 baht/day I will likely have to cut the pay of the workers making more than the minimum to be able to keep costs the same. How are those workers going to feel about making less so that the workers that do less get more money? The other side of this is that I fire some of the weaker workers so I can maintain my current payroll which means I how employ fewer workers and the fired ones have no income.

Your good intentions of providing everyone with a basic standard of living isn't helping those fired workers, is it? I am sure they would be happy with the wage they were making before the government inserted it's nose into their business.

every arguement seems 2b small minded petty small businesmens train of thought

a fair days wage for a fair days work

and the busines will thrive fairly or not. either way, not on the bac of anothers misfortune.

[Andreas2]

It's Sunday evening (meanwhile Monday morning ) and the wife didn't allow me to go out for a drink, so please be a little bit patient with me and let's have some fun together on this topic, ok?

Every member of a society has the right to a basic standard of living. Whether you like it or not.

Let me be really unfair for just one second... "Every member of society", does this also include rapists and murderers, for example?

Ok, the second is over... Let's get fairer and more serious again.

I see, Bluespunk, you are really painstakingly holding back your arguments for your claims about "jobs must guarantee a minimum/basic standard of living" and the differentiation between "rights and services".

You have your rock-solid principles and I accept that. Now please help me to understand your findings so that it's easier for me to also "like them: The rights to basic standard of living", as you so eloquently put it.

Despite this temporary setback I would very much like to learn more from you and your experience as I am one of these despicable exploiters of unskilled employees. (Ok, I pay them more than the minimum wage but the discussion here is about principles, so I am potentially and emotionally one of these evil-doers)

Will you take the bait?

I have quickly created some sound bites (? I'm not a native English speaker so please forgive me my linguistic shortcomings) to challenge you... again... In the hope that this time you will finally clarify your own definitions of "rights" and "jobs"... - I have already delivered mine.

Let's start the fun:

I took the time to derive some hints from the minimum wage crowd's logic for the following situations.

As an individual, looking for a job:
If I can't find a job which fulfills my wage expectations, I rise my wage claims.

As an individual, already having a job:
To make sure that I can keep my quite low-skills-job at the current wage level and avoid risking to lose it to another unskilled, young person, who is willing and able to do my job for half of my salary, I request to impose a minimum wage. This minimum wage must be just a little bit too high, so that my boss is not willing to waste any thoughts about taking the risk to offer my job to an unknown young, inexperienced and unskilled person.

As an individual, now retired:
I, as an experienced, successful ex-employee, I know exactly, how a fair salary has to be defined, everywhere in this world; The quality of the workforce and the whole work environment is a non-issue to me.
Furthermore, I request from an employer (who I don't know) to pay my carefully (what the heck, scientifically!) evaluated minimum wage for an employee (who I don't know) and his quality of work (which I don't know).
Additionally I request that if my claims are not satisfied, the employer has to be punished and the employee has to be fired and sent back to the quest of looking for a new job which fulfills my minimum wage claims. I don't care about the now jobless worker as I regard him as collateral damage. Anyway, I expect him to be grateful as I make sure he can not be exploited anymore.

As the government:
If I want to make sure, that no one of the part of my unskilled population gets a job offered, I impose or rise (if needed) a minimum wage, nationwide. The higher the better as I care very much about the opinion of the foreign good-doers on TVF.

Minimum wages are aimed against the freedoms and options of young, inexperienced, low skilled workers. They are highly immoral.


Trying to be fair: I'm convinced that the proponents of minimum wages have no bad intentions at all - But the same results could also be achieved with the evil motivations above. No?

Please, to all good-doers here, elaborate your own reasoning for once, as I just did. Crying "Sacrilege!!! makes you look silly.

You have an economical and moral mission to fulfill. This is a chance for you to sell it to the uninitiated like me.

PS: Bluespunk, can we still be friends? Sometimes I just feel the neet to be a little bit feisty. I also have my experiences and principles. And I try to convey them openly.

Edited June 7, 2015 by Andreas2

[baboon]

Too many of you are only looking at this from one point of view, the employee that makes the minimum wage. If I own a company and there is no minimum wage I can pay my employees what I think they are with and deserve based upon my revenues. Now suppose I pay worker A 550 baht/day and worker B only 300/day because he does not work as hard or as well as A. Suddenly the government imposes a 400 baht/day minimum wage; my wages have increased but my revenues have not. In order to pay all my workers who are currently making less than 400 baht/day I will likely have to cut the pay of the workers making more than the minimum to be able to keep costs the same. How are those workers going to feel about making less so that the workers that do less get more money? The other side of this is that I fire some of the weaker workers so I can maintain my current payroll which means I how employ fewer workers and the fired ones have no income.

Your good intentions of providing everyone with a basic standard of living isn't helping those fired workers, is it? I am sure they would be happy with the wage they were making before the government inserted it's nose into their business.

So what is the purpose of government at all, if not to govern? That is what inserting their nose into people's business entails. Me, I don't fancy a desperate struggle to survive, nor do I wish it upon anyone else to serve the interests of the few. That is what government is supposed to help with.

[rijit]

Too many of you are only looking at this from one point of view, the employee that makes the minimum wage. If I own a company and there is no minimum wage I can pay my employees what I think they are with and deserve based upon my revenues. Now suppose I pay worker A 550 baht/day and worker B only 300/day because he does not work as hard or as well as A. Suddenly the government imposes a 400 baht/day minimum wage; my wages have increased but my revenues have not. In order to pay all my workers who are currently making less than 400 baht/day I will likely have to cut the pay of the workers making more than the minimum to be able to keep costs the same. How are those workers going to feel about making less so that the workers that do less get more money? The other side of this is that I fire some of the weaker workers so I can maintain my current payroll which means I how employ fewer workers and the fired ones have no income.

Your good intentions of providing everyone with a basic standard of living isn't helping those fired workers, is it? I am sure they would be happy with the wage they were making before the government inserted it's nose into their business.

So what is the purpose of government at all, if not to govern? That is what inserting their nose into people's business entails. Me, I don't fancy a desperate struggle to survive, nor do I wish it upon anyone else to serve the interests of the few. That is what government is supposed to help with.

yep if they were elected perhap its a fair comment but the current encumbants?

[Bluespunk]

It's Sunday evening (meanwhile Monday morning ) and the wife didn't allow me to go out for a drink, so please be a little bit patient with me and let's have some fun together on this topic, ok?

Every member of a society has the right to a basic standard of living. Whether you like it or not.

Let me be really unfair for just one second... "Every member of society", does this also include rapists and murderers, for example?

Ok, the second is over... Let's get fairer and more serious again.

I see, Bluespunk, you are really painstakingly holding back your arguments for your claims about "jobs must guarantee a minimum/basic standard of living" and the differentiation between "rights and services".

You have your rock-solid principles and I accept that. Now please help me to understand your findings so that it's easier for me to also "like them: The rights to basic standard of living", as you so eloquently put it.

Despite this temporary setback I would very much like to learn more from you and your experience as I am one of these despicable exploiters of unskilled employees. (Ok, I pay them more than the minimum wage but the discussion here is about principles, so I am potentially and emotionally one of these evil-doers)

Will you take the bait?

I have quickly created some sound bites (? I'm not a native English speaker so please forgive me my linguistic shortcomings) to challenge you... again... In the hope that this time you will finally clarify your own definitions of "rights" and "jobs"... - I have already delivered mine.

Let's start the fun:

I took the time to derive some hints from the minimum wage crowd's logic for the following situations.

As an individual, looking for a job:

If I can't find a job which fulfills my wage expectations, I rise my wage claims.

As an individual, already having a job:

To make sure that I can keep my quite low-skills-job at the current wage level and avoid risking to lose it to another unskilled, young person, who is willing and able to do my job for half of my salary, I request to impose a minimum wage. This minimum wage must be just a little bit too high, so that my boss is not willing to waste any thoughts about taking the risk to offer my job to an unknown young, inexperienced and unskilled person.

As an individual, now retired:

I, as an experienced, successful ex-employee, I know exactly, how a fair salary has to be defined, everywhere in this world; The quality of the workforce and the whole work environment is a non-issue to me.

Furthermore, I request from an employer (who I don't know) to pay my carefully (what the heck, scientifically!) evaluated minimum wage for an employee (who I don't know) and his quality of work (which I don't know).

Additionally I request that if my claims are not satisfied, the employer has to be punished and the employee has to be fired and sent back to the quest of looking for a new job which fulfills my minimum wage claims. I don't care about the now jobless worker as I regard him as collateral damage. Anyway, I expect him to be grateful as I make sure he can not be exploited anymore.

As the government:

If I want to make sure, that no one of the part of my unskilled population gets a job offered, I impose or rise (if needed) a minimum wage, nationwide. The higher the better as I care very much about the opinion of the foreign good-doers on TVF.

Minimum wages are aimed against the freedoms and options of young, inexperienced, low skilled workers. They are highly immoral.

Trying to be fair: I'm convinced that the proponents of minimum wages have no bad intentions at all - But the same results could also be achieved with the evil motivations above. No?

Please, to all good-doers here, elaborate your own reasoning for once, as I just did. Crying "Sacrilege!!! makes you look silly.

You have an economical and moral mission to fulfill. This is a chance for you to sell it to the uninitiated like me.

PS: Bluespunk, can we still be friends? Sometimes I just feel the neet to be a little bit feisty. I also have my experiences and principles. And I try to convey them openly.

The minimum wage is there to protect the workers right to a basic standard of living. It is the duty of a govt to ensure they have this. Happens the world over and that is as it should be.

[MAJIC]

It really doesn't matter where you are in the world, the wealthy get richer and the poor get poorer.

Sooner or later something will cause a revolt.

Yep! that's been the same all of my working life, I wouldn't hold your breath though that anything will change in your lifetime either!

[lostoday]

My wife told me sometimes you have to let the peasants know they are peasants. I can see her point.

Which is ' fine' if you want to stay with a feudalistic society, you want to move a country/society/ business to progress on then not.

Now there is the question. Is Thailand a feudal society with a few rich folks at the top or a modern society with a future?

[halloween]

The minimum wage is there to protect the workers right to a basic standard of living. It is the duty of a govt to ensure they have this. Happens the world over and that is as it should be.

But the question is not should there be a minimum wage, but whether there should be a different minimum in the various regions.

[Bluespunk]

The minimum wage is there to protect the workers right to a basic standard of living. It is the duty of a govt to ensure they have this. Happens the world over and that is as it should be.

But the question is not should there be a minimum wage, but whether there should be a different minimum in the various regions.

No, that's a different question to the one my post was responding to.

However it is a good question.

[rijit]

The minimum wage is there to protect the workers right to a basic standard of living. It is the duty of a govt to ensure they have this. Happens the world over and that is as it should be.

But the question is not should there be a minimum wage, but whether there should be a different minimum in the various regions.

no mater what the statisticians and politicians say baring the COST OF ACCOMMODATION the cost of daily essentials are the same through the country, if anything from my experience often more expensive in rural areas, but lets say they are even. one of the biggest gripes the red shirts had was the national economic division, a national minimum wage makes sense, don't separate the country into areas of high earners and low cost of living areas. I thought the junta would need to mend and heal not separate and divide.

Edited June 8, 2015 by rijit

[BirdsandBooze]

In a fair and civilised society the bottom line shouldn't be about the last cent, penny or baht profit to the company. Not everyone is born equal but a fair society will intercede to close the gap in living standards and give a leg up to it's citizens at the bottom of the pile, at the expense of those most able to pay. Keeping the poor in penary makes for an unjust and unsettled society.

[rijit]

i suspect the junta have horse traded deals and lost and this 'change' is the cost. shame thought they were better than that.

Edited June 8, 2015 by rijit

[Balance]

Sounds like someone as partaken of the same cool-aid as the CDC folks. Make something that is simple and that can be understood the people electing their government or a standardized minimum wage and replacing it with mass confusion. Why? This question has to the asked. The article did not say if the 300 TB would be the floor. But, we should not worry too much as it will take a few years for anything to happen.

[wolfmanjack]

Lower labour rates produces increased employment until such time as near full employment is reached and then employers have to start competing for labour by offering increased wages.

The question is, is it moral to operate a system whereby people are forced to work for less than subsistence rates?

Even more pertinent is the question - what happens to consumption??

If the people are too poor to buy anything, then businesses will have no customers and have to downsize their workforce producing even more people with no income to purchase anything leading to further downsizing and on and on and on until someone like Thaksin comes along again and rescues the day by using government policy (higher minimum wage / rice subsidy / credit facilities for the poor etc...) to direct capital into the hands of the millions and millions of poor Thais enabling them to once again become consumers thereby increasing demand for goods which of course means business will be able to start expanding (and hiring) to keep up.

The truth is what is good for the elites is good for the elites and what is good for the masses is good for the entire country - too bad the wrong people are in charge at the moment.

Normally I read the whole thread but it's late. Could someone give me the talking points of the people in power on this one.

My wife told me the minimum wage made it impossible for one family to make ceramic bowls in Issan because they had to pay their two employees 300 baht a day instead of 180 baht and those two laborers in Issan were effecting the entire economy. I rolled my eyes and now she is not speaking to me (you don't understand Thailand) so that's why I'm asking you guys.

My wife must have got the talking points wrong no one really believes stuff like that do they?

I know a guy that had 500 workers. He told me he needed 300 workers but hired 500 to make sure he always had enough that showed up to get the work done. Almost the entire village worked for him.

When the minimum wage was raised to 300 baht he didn't raise his wage and the workers complained to the labor department. He responded that he was rich enough and did not need to keep the business open and closed his factory down.

How much do you think that affected that village? Of course those workers and the people that had shops to sell stuff to those workers can move to bankok (or another city) and get another job but wouldn't it have been better for them to work for 200 baht per day and still be able to stay at home?

[wolfmanjack]

The minimum wage is there to protect the workers right to a basic standard of living. It is the duty of a govt to ensure they have this. Happens the world over and that is as it should be.

But the question is not should there be a minimum wage, but whether there should be a different minimum in the various regions.

no mater what the statisticians and politicians say baring the COST OF ACCOMMODATION the cost of daily essentials are the same through the country, if anything from my experience often more expensive in rural areas, but lets say they are even. one of the biggest gripes the red shirts had was the national economic division, a national minimum wage makes sense, don't separate the country into areas of high earners and low cost of living areas. I thought the junta would need to mend and heal not separate and divide.

The lower minimum wage in different areas was to encourage factories to be built somewhere other than bangkok. If the minimum wage is the same nation wide what incentive is there to build a factory in isaan instead of bangkok?

[ExPratt]

Lower labour rates produces increased employment until such time as near full employment is reached and then employers have to start competing for labour by offering increased wages.

The question is, is it moral to operate a system whereby people are forced to work for less than subsistence rates?

Even more pertinent is the question - what happens to consumption??

If the people are too poor to buy anything, then businesses will have no customers and have to downsize their workforce producing even more people with no income to purchase anything leading to further downsizing and on and on and on until someone like Thaksin comes along again and rescues the day by using government policy (higher minimum wage / rice subsidy / credit facilities for the poor etc...) to direct capital into the hands of the millions and millions of poor Thais enabling them to once again become consumers thereby increasing demand for goods which of course means business will be able to start expanding (and hiring) to keep up.

The truth is what is good for the elites is good for the elites and what is good for the masses is good for the entire country - too bad the wrong people are in charge at the moment.

Normally I read the whole thread but it's late. Could someone give me the talking points of the people in power on this one.

My wife told me the minimum wage made it impossible for one family to make ceramic bowls in Issan because they had to pay their two employees 300 baht a day instead of 180 baht and those two laborers in Issan were effecting the entire economy. I rolled my eyes and now she is not speaking to me (you don't understand Thailand) so that's why I'm asking you guys.

My wife must have got the talking points wrong no one really believes stuff like that do they?

I know a guy that had 500 workers. He told me he needed 300 workers but hired 500 to make sure he always had enough that showed up to get the work done. Almost the entire village worked for him.

When the minimum wage was raised to 300 baht he didn't raise his wage and the workers complained to the labor department. He responded that he was rich enough and did not need to keep the business open and closed his factory down.

How much do you think that affected that village? Of course those workers and the people that had shops to sell stuff to those workers can move to bankok (or another city) and get another job but wouldn't it have been better for them to work for 200 baht per day and still be able to stay at home?

How much was he paying them then and if he was paying 500 to do 300 peoples work , i would expect he was paying more for 500 than he would 300 at minimum wage, in fact he must have been paying 180 a day to not be worth his while

[ExPratt]

Lower labour rates produces increased employment until such time as near full employment is reached and then employers have to start competing for labour by offering increased wages.

The question is, is it moral to operate a system whereby people are forced to work for less than subsistence rates?

Even more pertinent is the question - what happens to consumption??

If the people are too poor to buy anything, then businesses will have no customers and have to downsize their workforce producing even more people with no income to purchase anything leading to further downsizing and on and on and on until someone like Thaksin comes along again and rescues the day by using government policy (higher minimum wage / rice subsidy / credit facilities for the poor etc...) to direct capital into the hands of the millions and millions of poor Thais enabling them to once again become consumers thereby increasing demand for goods which of course means business will be able to start expanding (and hiring) to keep up.

The truth is what is good for the elites is good for the elites and what is good for the masses is good for the entire country - too bad the wrong people are in charge at the moment.

Normally I read the whole thread but it's late. Could someone give me the talking points of the people in power on this one.

My wife told me the minimum wage made it impossible for one family to make ceramic bowls in Issan because they had to pay their two employees 300 baht a day instead of 180 baht and those two laborers in Issan were effecting the entire economy. I rolled my eyes and now she is not speaking to me (you don't understand Thailand) so that's why I'm asking you guys.

My wife must have got the talking points wrong no one really believes stuff like that do they?

I know a guy that had 500 workers. He told me he needed 300 workers but hired 500 to make sure he always had enough that showed up to get the work done. Almost the entire village worked for him.

When the minimum wage was raised to 300 baht he didn't raise his wage and the workers complained to the labor department. He responded that he was rich enough and did not need to keep the business open and closed his factory down.

How much do you think that affected that village? Of course those workers and the people that had shops to sell stuff to those workers can move to bankok (or another city) and get another job but wouldn't it have been better for them to work for 200 baht per day and still be able to stay at home?

How much was he paying them then and if he was paying 500 to do 300 peoples work , i would expect he was paying more for 500 than he would 300 at minimum wage, in fact he must have been paying 180 a day to not be worth his while

[dageurreotype]

You can all shut your yap, from today's BP this was all another 'mistake' and 'only an idea' and any minimum wage would only be higher, not lower. Guess he's already having second thoughts after he was advised any lowering of this parsimonious rate would severely hit his perceived popularity ratings detract from the happiness of the Thai people

[baboon]

The minimum wage is there to protect the workers right to a basic standard of living. It is the duty of a govt to ensure they have this. Happens the world over and that is as it should be.

But the question is not should there be a minimum wage, but whether there should be a different minimum in the various regions.

no mater what the statisticians and politicians say baring the COST OF ACCOMMODATION the cost of daily essentials are the same through the country, if anything from my experience often more expensive in rural areas, but lets say they are even. one of the biggest gripes the red shirts had was the national economic division, a national minimum wage makes sense, don't separate the country into areas of high earners and low cost of living areas. I thought the junta would need to mend and heal not separate and divide.

The lower minimum wage in different areas was to encourage factories to be built somewhere other than bangkok. If the minimum wage is the same nation wide what incentive is there to build a factory in isaan instead of bangkok?

Considerably lower rents?

[JAG]

My wife told me sometimes you have to let the peasants know they are peasants. I can see her point.

Which is ' fine' if you want to stay with a feudalistic society, you want to move a country/society/ business to progress on then not.

Now there is the question. Is Thailand a feudal society with a few rich folks at the top or a modern society with a future?

A very good question.

My take on it is that it currently is the former, but an increasingly well informed population wish it to be the latter.

The trick is to make the change without violence - something which I am increasingly sceptical about.

As for the prospect of those at the top of the feudal pile losing out - well, my heart pumps purple piss, as they say!

Edited June 8, 2015 by JAG

[ExPratt]

You would assume people would migrate to different areas if it was worth their while , if they had no job I suppose they would. Reminders of Thatchers destruction of industry in mainly the north of England ,they were naughty little Red shirts as well

[wolfmanjack]

Lower labour rates produces increased employment until such time as near full employment is reached and then employers have to start competing for labour by offering increased wages.

The question is, is it moral to operate a system whereby people are forced to work for less than subsistence rates?

Even more pertinent is the question - what happens to consumption??

If the people are too poor to buy anything, then businesses will have no customers and have to downsize their workforce producing even more people with no income to purchase anything leading to further downsizing and on and on and on until someone like Thaksin comes along again and rescues the day by using government policy (higher minimum wage / rice subsidy / credit facilities for the poor etc...) to direct capital into the hands of the millions and millions of poor Thais enabling them to once again become consumers thereby increasing demand for goods which of course means business will be able to start expanding (and hiring) to keep up.

The truth is what is good for the elites is good for the elites and what is good for the masses is good for the entire country - too bad the wrong people are in charge at the moment.

Normally I read the whole thread but it's late. Could someone give me the talking points of the people in power on this one.

My wife told me the minimum wage made it impossible for one family to make ceramic bowls in Issan because they had to pay their two employees 300 baht a day instead of 180 baht and those two laborers in Issan were effecting the entire economy. I rolled my eyes and now she is not speaking to me (you don't understand Thailand) so that's why I'm asking you guys.

My wife must have got the talking points wrong no one really believes stuff like that do they?

I know a guy that had 500 workers. He told me he needed 300 workers but hired 500 to make sure he always had enough that showed up to get the work done. Almost the entire village worked for him.

When the minimum wage was raised to 300 baht he didn't raise his wage and the workers complained to the labor department. He responded that he was rich enough and did not need to keep the business open and closed his factory down.

How much do you think that affected that village? Of course those workers and the people that had shops to sell stuff to those workers can move to bankok (or another city) and get another job but wouldn't it have been better for them to work for 200 baht per day and still be able to stay at home?

How much was he paying them then and if he was paying 500 to do 300 peoples work , i would expect he was paying more for 500 than he would 300 at minimum wage, in fact he must have been paying 180 a day to not be worth his while

The minimum wage was apprx 186 here in chiang mai before the 300 kicked in but that isn't the point. Yhe point is the 186 was worth more to the employee that was living at home with no rent and could grow some of their own food, had family and friends around them during work and after. Their quality of life was better being able to stay in their community with their spouse and children than it would be having to move someplace else to work.

The nature of the thai rural worker is why he had to hire 500 to do the work of 300. If he would have only hired 300 then there would be many days throughout the year he would not have had enough workers to get the job done.

[wolfmanjack]

no mater what the statisticians and politicians say baring the COST OF ACCOMMODATION the cost of daily essentials are the same through the country, if anything from my experience often more expensive in rural areas, but lets say they are even. one of the biggest gripes the red shirts had was the national economic division, a national minimum wage makes sense, don't separate the country into areas of high earners and low cost of living areas. I thought the junta would need to mend and heal not separate and divide.

The lower minimum wage in different areas was to encourage factories to be built somewhere other than bangkok. If the minimum wage is the same nation wide what incentive is there to build a factory in isaan instead of bangkok?

Considerably lower rents?

Possibly but i doubt it. Rents are usually not one of the major costs of production in factories that hire enough workers for the difference in minimum wage to entice them to move to somewhere that would mean increased transportation costs.

Not only that but most factories that large buy their own land.