Reopening to see Thai employment rate rocket this year
The country’s reopening and a push for economic recovery is expected to generate double-digit growth in the country’s employment rate this year, according to job search platform JobsDB.
IT, engineering, digital marketing professions and those with skill sets to support the creation of the metaverse are in short supply, despite an increase in their salaries, said JobsDB.
Hybrid work is a key incentive that can help retain employees and avoid mass resignations, said the company.
“We believe the Thai employment rate will see double-digit growth this year following the easing of pandemic restrictions over the past two months, with a 20-50% rise expected, depending on the sector,” said Duangporn Promon, managing director of JobsDB Recruitment (Thailand).
IT workers have the highest demand since the pandemic and this trend will continue because of digital transformation, she said. Programmers, software developers, data scientists, analysts, and those with skills in IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, cloud operations and artificial intelligence are the most sought-after by IT companies.
“Demand for digital marketers and people with skills that can support the metaverse is also on the rise,” Ms Duangporn said.
IT was the top profession in terms of proportion of companies that saw a salary increase, reported by 41% of firms, followed by sales, customer service and marketing at 40%, education and training at 40%, health and beauty at 39%, and administration at 38%. These figures compared the first nine months of 2021 with the same period a year earlier.
She said hybrid work policies and challenging work are key factors that can attract employees. In the US and Singapore, remote work has been adopted to reduce resignations, while big conglomerates in Thailand also pursue this trend, said Ms Duangporn.
Layoffs at startups are not expected to surge, but they have happened at large, loss-making companies such as e-marketplace Shopee. Shopee reportedly pursued redundancies across markets in Asean, including Thailand.
Amid rising inflation, “business needs to seek more revenue to raise salaries for their employees to cope with higher costs,” she said.
JobsDB also unveiled its job market outlook survey for 2022, based on job postings and job application data. The computer and IT industry was the top sector for job openings on its platform last year, driven by changes in customer internet behaviour and government support for the adoption of IT devices.
The industry accounted for 11.3% of job openings, trailed by retail and trade with 10.8%, and banking and finance with 8.4%.
The jobs that received the most applications were in sales, customer service and business development with 14.3%, followed by marketing and public relations at 11.7%.