In the second quarter of 2024, employment in Thailand fell by 0.4% compared to the previous year, primarily attributed to a decrease in agricultural jobs, following a 0.1% dip in the preceding quarter, as reported by the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) on Monday.
Agricultural employment witnessed a significant 5% decline year-on-year, while non-farm employment saw a 1.5% increase during the same period.
Specifically, job opportunities in the hotel and restaurant sector experienced an uptick of 4.9% year-on-year in the April-June quarter, while manufacturing employment also grew by 2.2%.
However, the jobless rate in Thailand rose to 1.07% in the second quarter from 1.01% in the previous three months, with NESDC head Danucha Pichayanan attributing this rise to closures of smaller businesses.
It is important to note that Thailand’s unemployment calculation is narrow, only considering individuals who have not worked a single hour in a surveyed week as jobless, thereby not fully capturing the extent of the informal job market.
The country’s total workforce stood at 40.18 million in the second quarter, showing little change from the previous quarter’s 40.2 million.
Despite the employment challenges, Thailand’s economy outperformed expectations, growing by 2.3% year-on-year in the April-June quarter. The NESDC anticipates a growth rate of 2.5% for the year 2024, following a 1.9% expansion in the previous year, which lagged behind other economies in the region.
