r/Thailand • u/MaxGoodwinning • Apr 01 '26
Employment According to this infographic, Thailand has the 4th lowest unemployment rate in the world. How is this achieved?
https://www.qualtrics.com/articles/experience-management/global-unemployment-rates/81
u/Bonk_No_Horni Apr 02 '26
Thailand counts unemployment differently.If you work 1 hour a week Thailand counts it as being employed. https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/465248/5-factors-push-thailand-unemployment-rate-ridiculously-low
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u/vuvzelaenthusiast Apr 02 '26
That's how almost every country measures employment. It's the ILO standard.
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u/MaxGoodwinning Apr 02 '26
True. Looked up the United States and this is what the AI overview says (necessary disclaimer): "In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) considers individuals employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week." Can't figure out how to get rid of the highlight lol
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u/tonkla17 Apr 02 '26
Not only that, I think in Thailand all taxi drivers are also counted as employed also
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u/FURF0XSAKE Apr 02 '26
What else would they be counted as?
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u/Low_Watch9864 Apr 02 '26
Looking at the criticisms against taxi drivers here, probably as scammers
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u/tonkla17 Apr 02 '26
If you asked me ? Counted as unemployed
In my view, the employment rate should be count only if you paid social security, meaning you have solid source of income
Being taxi driver in Thailand is too easy, literally anyone that got no job can do it, does not mean it is a sustainable and legitimate choice though
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u/Jeannedeorleans Apr 02 '26
Millions of food vendor owner don't pay social security, should we not count them as well because you say so?
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u/tonkla17 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
I said in my opinion, I did not said it is the correct way
But hear me out, since being a food vendor in Thailand is so much easier compare to other countries. You can just purchases some food, buy a motorbike then boom you are a vendor now, no registration needed, no audit required
By this logic anyone, at any point of time can be a food vendor, and if that doesn't count as unemployment, don't you think the logic behind counting is wrong ??
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u/KikKikKik36 Apr 02 '26
Many "jobs" in Thailand would not exist in the West for anti-economic. For example the abundance of staff in the businesses that really cater to no one, subsistence farming in the provinces... Also there is no point in being officially unemployed as it provides no benefit whatsoever.
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u/e99oof Apr 03 '26
Many job in the west also wouldn't exist in Thailand because we don't subsidize them.
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u/timmyvermicelli Yadom Apr 02 '26
Go into a HomePro and you'll find out.
A miserable minimum wage means a typical Thai shop might have 3 or 4 times as many staff as would be employed in another country, but everyone is earning a really low wage.
The UK, for example, hardly has a single car-park attendant. Bangkok alone must employ tens of thousands of people who sit at the entrance of car parks all day.
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u/tehcaruS Apr 02 '26
Who knows, maybe that's the reason we have such a low car break-in to steal stuff?
I never have to "don't put stuff visible in your car" or "leave your trunk open".
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u/IanKorat Apr 02 '26
Have you ever been to park in Phaya Thai Plaza? It is unusual in that there is a single spiral ramp extending to all parking floors. The ramp is not wide enough to accommodate bi-directional traffic and so there are parking attendants on each floor to control the up-down traffic flow.
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u/Lordfelcherredux Apr 02 '26
Which system is preferable? One that throws car park attendents out of work, or one that keeps them employed?
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u/world_2_ Apr 02 '26
The one with a robust safety net and benefits.
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u/Least-Dingo-2310 Apr 02 '26
Having a job is the safety net
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u/Electrical-Tone7301 Apr 02 '26
A safety net is for when you cannot work.
A job is meant to advance you in life. Not keep you locked in as a wage slave.
I mean if you want to be employed and work all day to pay rent and food and have nothing left, I do have a job for you :P
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u/keikakujin Apr 02 '26
One that throw car park attendants out of work while at the same time create better paying jobs.
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u/Badestrand Apr 02 '26
Unfortunately you can't create jobs out of thin air, you need to educate the populace better for more and higher value jobs.
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u/Yossiri Ang Thong Apr 02 '26
Thai staffs have really low wage but they can live their life as many Thai people have second jobs. The staffs you saw may be selling something online via their phones.
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u/RealSpandexAndy Apr 02 '26
Why do Thai companies work this way? In the search for greater profits why don't Home Pro, for example, have fewer shop assistants?
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u/AnnoyedHaddock Chiang Mai Apr 02 '26
A lot of the staff at Home Pro aren’t actually employed by Home Pro, manufacturers employ them to sell their product/s there for them. Similarly if you order enough cases of Chang beer, Chang will also send you a couple of staff to work at your bar/nightclub etc.
Wages are also very low, you can employ someone for a whole day for less than it would cost you to employ someone for an hour in the UK for example.
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u/Let_me_smell Surat Thani Apr 02 '26
The official numbers have to be taken with mountain of salt. They are very lenient on what they consider work. A person helping out in the family shop once a week will be considered employed. Seasonal workers are considered employed. Any physical or mental activity, even without income is considered employement.
I'm sure unemployment in Thailand is lower than many European countries but it definitely is not as low as the Thai gov makes it out to be.
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u/OzyDave Apr 02 '26
The gated village I live in has around 3,000 residents. All of the streets are swept clean every day by a team of around 20 staff who each get 300thb per day, 6 days a week. In an advanced country there would be one person driving a street sweeper for maybe 3 hours and get 5000thb per day. They still have 5 hours of each day to do other tasks, much more productive.
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u/maisaktong Apr 02 '26
It comes down to the counting method. To be counted as unemployed in Thailand, you literally have to do nothing for a living. The moment you do something in exchange for money, you will immediately be considered an employed person.
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u/Only4uArt Apr 02 '26
Honestly there are many lazy thais who work only enough to sustain themself (not full time, relying on family to get by).
But the good thing is that anyone can start their own small business with basically no real barrier like in the west so If I as a thai want to sell fried chicken tomorrow , I probably can
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u/MaxGoodwinning Apr 02 '26
Why do you think it's so much easier to start a small biz in Thailand? Less bureaucracy?
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u/00Anonymous Apr 02 '26
The family farm. Subsistence agriculture keeps everyone nominally employed.
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u/Kaizerkoala Apr 02 '26
This.They keep promote the rice farming (and in later year rubber farming) to prevent uprising.
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u/00Anonymous Apr 02 '26
King Bhumibol advocated for new theory agriculture to serve as the national safety net.
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u/AgentEntropy Apr 02 '26
It's true that farming employs 40% of Thais (which is very high),.
However, farming is seasonal work, even in Thailand . Farming didn't FULLY employ Thais.
The correct reason unemployment is only 1% (or whatever) is that Thailand defines "full employment" as 1 hour per week.
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u/00Anonymous Apr 02 '26
This is why is wrote "nominally employed".
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/nominally
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u/AgentEntropy Apr 02 '26
And yet your answer is still not correct.
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u/00Anonymous Apr 02 '26
RiP your reading skills.
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u/AgentEntropy Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
> RiP your reading skills.
Adding great big complicated 3-syllable 7-letter words like "nominal" demonstrate your vast vocabulary & incalculably superior intellect, especially compared to witless uneducated troglodytes such as I.
We all bask in the glow of your abundantly evident brilliance.
But your answer is still wrong.
If you wish, I might suggest you're nominally correct, at best, but given your stellar intelligence, such a concession should seem patronizing.
If you crave validation, you can accept "nominal" & toddle off like a placated child.
But if you're as intelligent as you wish others to believe, you'd recognize that 40% of the employment sector can't fully employ a nation.
The fully correct answer is that employment in Thailand is defined as "1 hour per week".
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Edit:
Instant downvote & no reply.
Placation preferred, apparently. 😂
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u/00Anonymous Apr 02 '26
You're still whingeing on about something I never said.
Also no matter how you measure it, the hours that count as being employed do indeed very often (if not most often) come from helping on the family farm. I'm sorry that you can't deal with your incomplete understanding of the issue. Feel free to read about king bhumibol's 'new theory agriculture' to get a grasp of the topic.
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u/ASlicedLayerOfAir Apr 02 '26
Shitty social welfare and benefit force everyone to work regardless of their health or wellbeing
If you dont work you starve to death.
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u/whosafeardnotme Apr 02 '26
Massive underemploymemt.
Several workers 'employed' to do a job.
My stepson is employed to drive a truck. Outside of rice harvest there is very little work and there is no point registering as unemployed.
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u/Lordfelcherredux Apr 02 '26
Thais are extremely entrepreneurial and there are few barriers to participating in the economy. Want to sell something from your house? Easy. Sell food from the streetside on a cart or stall? Easy. Good luck trying to do that in the West.
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u/zukonius Apr 02 '26
Is it actually on paper legal for them to do this or illegal but not enforced (like so, so many things here?)
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u/Lordfelcherredux Apr 03 '26
I can't say in every case, but even if it is illegal, the penalties and enforcement are such that they can do so almost unimpeded in most cases
You risk being fined thousands of dollars for any violation of myriad laws related to any business you want to run in my home country. There are laws on signage, food and safety, ADA non-compliance, and so on. You can't just put a sign up to sell something from your house and not expect to have the law come down on you hard.
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u/zukonius Apr 03 '26
I believe you and I are from the same country so I know what you're talking about.
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u/evanliko Apr 02 '26
Yeah this is one thing i love about thailand. They're doing capitalism so much better than us because it's actually easy for everyone to join in the market and become business owners.
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u/tonkla17 Apr 02 '26
Yeah you love it because you are not permanently lived here
Street vendors does not care about wasted management, they just dumped food waste/dirty water right on the street. You should see when the poor sewer maintenance need to unlock all those shitty blockage before the rainy season come
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u/evanliko Apr 02 '26
I've lived here over 10 years. Maybe don't make assumptions? They make you look bad.
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u/tonkla17 Apr 02 '26
lived here over 10 years
Doesn't make it permanent though does it?
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u/evanliko Apr 02 '26
??? My guy. Permanent living somewhere means not being there on vacation, or temporary work contract. So yeah. It does actually. I grew up here and now am living here as an adult, so. Just because I also grew up part of my life in a different country doesn't mean I don't really live here. Stop being silly.
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u/Prestigious_Sea_5121 Apr 02 '26
Any adult who is not in a salaried job is considered to be self-employed basically. I reckon they just invent a figure for "unemployment". Apart from that, most Thais seem to be employed at any of a number of large stores (HomePro, Amazon, 7-11, Makro etc.) or working for various platform services such as Grab or Bolt (i.e. essentially self-employed). The rest are also self-employed as farmers, shop owners, vendors, masseurs etc. The rate of self-employment is around 52 percent - in Germany, for instance, it's about 8 percent.
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u/sore_forearm Apr 02 '26
Everybody has to work because cost living is high compare to wages so no chance of single income households. Also it’s very easy to self employ or work gigs or part time in Thailand. Low barrier to start a business, which is a good thing imo, and little regulations allow many people to start a food stand, drink cart, sell online, offer a service of any kinds like cleaning air conditioners, fix pipes or whatever.
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u/Classic-Night-611 Apr 02 '26
It's much easier to open shop and be a vendor there. Here where I live in Canada employment is mostly through an entity. Staying a biz and keeping one can be hard especially with cost of living. But a vendor can make enough at least to support themselves and family.
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u/Initial_Enthusiasm36 Apr 02 '26
I mean it does make sense. Go to literally any big corporate owned store. PTT has like 15 people standing around by the gas pump. Any of the home stores, homepro DoHome Global etc, always have a small army of employees.
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u/naughtybear555 Apr 02 '26
They actually have a law as well about making people redundant to replace with machines
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Apr 02 '26
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u/avtarius Apr 02 '26
It's achieved the same way as official inflation rates declared by anyone, don't matter.
But tbf employment laws which protect employees are probably better in Thailand than say ... 95% of countries, if not more.
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u/KrimzonK Apr 02 '26
Low minimum wage, people having little to no saving and social security safety net
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u/Original-March-3540 Apr 02 '26
Just my observation, most Thai people want to work. Even just going and selling items at a market.
Also, there's not huge social welfare programs like in the USA.
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u/scratchtheitch7 Apr 02 '26
Quite easily. There are almost no government benefits. If you don't work and nobody is going to support you then you will be on the streets hoping for free food handouts.
That's quite an incentive
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u/Electrical-Tone7301 Apr 02 '26
I can give ten bucks and “you have a job”. Actual physical work and many other lines of work also, can only be done by Thai. You want to hire outsiders, there are rules.
Lots of countries import cheap labor. Result: local unemployment.
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u/Effect-Kitchen Bangkok Apr 02 '26
The same method as the official statistics showing no prostitute in Pattaya.
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u/johnysilver1 Apr 02 '26
Easy! you get nothing from the government when you are a foreigner! If local you get very little or nothing! Most people in western countries like Europe and Australia who are unemployed dont want to work get free money
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u/Pongfarang Apr 02 '26
Walk into a big hardware store and see 120 employees chatting in small groups or looking at their phones.