There are no public holidays in Thailand until the Thai New Year - Songkran 13 to 17 April.
Skills Gap in Thailand
The World Bank recently published it's survey on the competiveness of Thailand, covering some 1000 large, middle and small companies from the most relevant sectors.
Shortage of skills remained a key obstacle for Thailand to move towards a knowledge economy: 40% of the companies now see labour skill level as a major constraint compared to only 30% in 2004.
Filling vacancies takes time because applicants lack skills that firms look for: basic aptitudes as well as technical skills do not meet requirements of the companies and hence it takes on average over 5 weeks to fill a technically oriented position. Command of English is slightly decreasing compared with 2004 and basic IT skills again are still short of expectations (do we need more Internet cafes?). The handicap on English is diminishing once we enter a professional level of hires.
What's causing these gaps? Few people will question the survey’s findings that much of the above is attributable to the Thai education system: observers quote a reluctance to fail students, a dependence on rote learning and archaic syllabi as being among the main causes for the backlog. As a result many candidates are entering the job market very ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of today’s business environment.
As there is no immediate remedy in sight, we typically advise companies to recruit for “talent” rather than knowledge.
Talent are our innate abilities that we carry with us throughout our life and are broader than just verbal and/or mathematical intelligence, experience and know-how.
Talented people are wanted everywhere at every stage of their career.
Therefore company management must make sure that people are in the "right" job that challenges and develops their talents – this will create the necessary link for staying for the long term an thus creating a virtuous cycle where both company and employee benefit.
New Law on Labour Protection
The revised 2008 version of the above immediately touches on an important issue in these economically challenging times: temporary cessation of business operations for reasons other than force majeure.
The first change concerns the guaranteed wage levels: from now on the company has to pay 75% of the normal wage rate – up from 50%.
Secondly the company need to give 3 work days prior warning before sending employees home on reduced pay.
