Employment rates are predicted to increase as the economic fallout from the pandemic finally begins to ease.
In the coming months, businesses should start to rehire staff as travel restrictions relax and critical business sectors start to come back to life, not because of the government’s management.
According to data from Trading Economics, the unemployment rate in Thailand has increased 2.25 per cent in the third quarter of 2021, a rise from 1.89 per cent in the second quarter this year.
Lae Dilokvidhyarat, a labor economist at Chulalongkorn University, told Thai Enquirer that employment growth is on the rise due to increased demands in the labor market.
“As the Covid-19 situation improves, entrepreneurs hire more workers as they aim to boost production,” Lae said “It’s an automatic economic recovery from the pandemic.”
Lae said that the government claims that its economic stimulus measures have significantly pushed employment growth. But this isn’t entirely accurate, he noted.
“Over the past two years, our economic recovery policies and schemes have demonstrated satisfactory results in increasing the employment rates,” Ratchada Thanadirek, Deputy Government Spokesperson said in a press conference at Government House on Monday.
But Lae argues that government policies didn’t actually help increase employment rates that much. He contends that the economy will only improve dramatically when the Covid-19 pandemic situation recovers.
“It’s not related to the government’s successful management, nor the Ministry of Labor’s policies,” Lae said.