According to a recent report of Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), the country’s unemployment rate in the first quarter fell to the lowest level in three years thanks to the strong recovery of the tourism industry.

In Q1 2023, Thailand’s unemployment rate stood at 1.05%, lower than the level of 1.15% in the last three months of 2022. Specifically, out of 39.6 million people in the labor force, there are 420,000 unemployed people. This is the lowest level since the 1.03% recorded in the first quarter of 2020, before the country’s economy was deeply affected by the pandemic. In particular, in February alone, for the first time in four years, Thailand’s unemployment rate fell below 1%. In addition, employment increased to 2.4% year-on-year, from 1.5% three months earlier.

Experts said that Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter of 2023 thanks to the continued recovery of the tourism industry, a key industry that has created the major job market in Thailand, after being hit by the pandemic.

However, the definition of unemployment in Thailand is very narrow because it is only counted as unemployed when a person does not work a single hour in a week surveyed. As a result, analysts say the statistics are not keeping pace with Thailand’s significant unofficial economy. Unofficial workers have unstable jobs such as motorbike taxi drivers, street vendors, grocers, online sales, etc., and accounts for a large proportion in the country.

The Thai government is now aiming to boost employment and bring the job market back to pre-pandemic levels.

(Source: Reuters)