June

No public holidays this month!

July

July 1 (Wednesday) – Bank Holiday (but not a public holiday except for some banks)
July 7 (Tuesday) – Asahna Bucha Day – Buddhist Lent day – Gemini office will be closed

Economic data are still acting like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: good and bad alternating, yet still reflecting the same economy.

The friendlier data has come from consumer and industrial confidence.

Mr Hyde shows up when reports talk about industrial production, GDP and employment.

Directly linked to the global inventory cycle, Thai industrial production is down 19% from its peak in mid-2008. However, Thailand should start to benefit from domestic and global policies to stimulate public and consumer spending. Specialists now expect positive quarter-on-quarter GDP growth in the second half 2009 and a 3.4% growth in 2010.

Typically the order book of the electronics industry is a relevant indicator of future trend direction: upwards or downwards?

Electronics manufacturers have started hiring thousands of staff in response to bottoming out global demand and the expectation that an economic recovery will start later this year. Orders for electronic and electrical goods from Thailand have been improving in the current 2nd quarter, the Board of Investment said,

• Producers of white goods, such as Toshiba, Sharp and Samsung, have seen orders rise to 80% of the pre-crisis volume, up from 60-70% in the first quarter.

• Similar trend has been reported by electronics manufacturers such as Western Digital, Hitachi and Fujitsu.

• Delta Electronics Plc reported that year-on-year sales figures for electronic components have actually increased.

WD, the world's second largest HDD maker, recruited an additional 3,000 workers for its Thai factories over the last month. HGST hired 1,000 workers in April, while Seagate Technology, the world's biggest HDD producer, has maintained its headcount at about 10,000.

Specialist and managerial recruitment however remained lackluster and selective, as well in electronics as in other sectors. As an example several high level experienced supply chain managers contacted us in the past months to either find a new job or find another job in a more buoyant environment. Below we have highlighted only a few of the excellent candidates we have met over the past month.

Although Gemini's approach to recruitment is fully customized to the Client’s specific needs and every vacancy triggers a dedicated search, we have highlighted below some of the profiles we are dealing with today:

Managing Director (Foreigner)

• 10 years successful experience in general management of Engineering Businesses (B 2 billion +) with strong emphasis on business turnaround and restructuring.

• Experienced in working with and in multiple cultures.

• Strong technical global sales and business development track record.

• Hard working, honest, ethical individual who delivers results whist being seen as a people person.

General Manager (Thai)

• 20 years of gradually increasing business responsibility in sales, marketing and large project management – B2B and B2C background

• Sector exposure to building systems, IT and telecom – all with renowned US, European and Thai companies

• Currently holds the MD position in a 1.5 billion baht European trading company and returned this operation to profitability in less than one year

• Respected communicator and leader – US and Thai educated

Supply Chain Manager (Thai)

• 20 years international business experience with MNC’s of excellent stature (US, Japanese, Thai)

• Duties and responsibilities included: production planning and inventory management, local and overseas sourcing, B.O.I., import and export, domestic and international transportation, warehousing and distribution.

• SAP, MFG-Pro, BPCS

• Educated in the US and in Thailand

• Strong negotiator and people manager - able to work under stress

Regulatory Affairs Manager (Thai)

• 10 years experience in business

• Responsible for regional product (medical devices and drugs) registration and post market surveillance

• Registrant experience for importer licenses and follow-up on submission

• Management of regional complaint handling system and complaints database

• Exposure to "Adverse event" response process and Field Corrective Action in Thailand and South East Asian regional offices

Financial Controller (Thai)

• Seasoned finance professional with strong operational skills in various business accounting disciplines, very hands-on and action oriented, for different types of businesses.

• Engineering and Consulting services for Infrastructure contracts (Asia), Construction, Real Estate, Connector manufacturing, Chemical process and IT Peripherals & Computer assembly)

• Management Accounting, Investment, Costing, Budgeting & Auditing, Project Accounting & Standard Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting and Trade Operation Management, Cash Management, Treasury, L/G, Insurance & Trade Finance and more

• Decisive with fast thorough consideration of pros/cons

• Possesses strong analytical skill and looks at the bigger picture as well

For more information about these candidates or about our recruitment services in general, please contact the Gemini Thailand Director for Customer relations, Jos Bosmans at jos@geminipersonnel.com or +66 2 650 8977

This is the story of a teacher Business English and his 2 female Chinese-Thai students who both work for a big MNC in downtown Bangkok. Both are on the road of being fluent, with currently their pronunciation being a little off kilter and sentence construction cutting corners the Thai way (traffic, construction etc.).

So one of the students opens the session and asks: "Do you have a good weekend?"

The teacher replies: "No no no", to which student number 2 cleverly corrects: "Did you have a good weekend?"

Teacher: "Yes I did, thank you. I went away. Can you guess where I went?"

S1: "Did you go to Chiang Mai for the cool weather?"

S2: "Did you go to Chantaburi to eat fruit?"

The teacher shakes his head.

"I know" the first students shouts, "did you go Pattaya to get laid?"

The teacher is now in shock because decent Thai women would never ask a question like this so he remains silent - dumbstruck.

The girls think they made a grammatical mistake. They go on reformulating the question in different tenses and almost end up in a (Thai) fight.

Finally the teacher asks to repeat the question and give more explanation:

S1: "Did you go to Pattaya to get RED? You know, the way farangs like to lie in the sun on the beach"

As the teacher attempts to close the subject and move on, both students sense they might have said something wrong. The teacher is too shy to explain and gives them an English dictionary.

Slowly S1 and S2 turn towards the teacher: "Oh," they cry out. "We have the same idiom in Thai."

"Now tell us all the other ways of saying it" while they open their notebook.

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