Like many of her former co-workers, Nuch has little to celebrate this Labour Day, May 1. Laid off recently at the age of 46, she is now struggling to find a new job to make ends meet.
“I was suddenly made redundant … it was devastating,” said Nuch, who declined to give her full name. She joined an electronics company nearly 25 years ago and had risen up the corporate ladder to become a supervisor.
“But one day my boss called me to his office just before I left for home. I was told abruptly that the company was struggling after the COVID-19 crisis and would have to let me go.”
The following day, Nuch was asked to sign a redundancy letter and handed severance pay of 400,000 baht. While the payoff was decent, it wouldn’t cover her expenses for long. Her youngest child is still in school, and she has a mortgage and credit-card bills to pay.
Despite being willing to take a lower salary and a more junior position, she still can’t find a new job. She’s found that most companies prefer younger candidates for job vacancies, making it difficult for anyone over 40 to compete – unless they have exceptional skills.
No job, no hope
While Nuch is worried about her future, her prospects are still brighter than those of the 859 employees of Yarnapund PCL, an auto parts company that abruptly shut down in November, leaving its employees jobless and broke. None received a severance payout.
“That was a huge blow,” says Malee Tewicha, who heads the Thai Automotive Parts Workers’ Union.
She notes that most of the workforce had commitments such as mortgages, car loans and children to raise. Suddenly cutting off their monthly stream of income plunges them into serious financial distress.
A former Yarnapund worker said many of her colleagues suffered badly because they had been on the brink of clearing their housing or car loans when they were laid off.
“Now, many have lost their cars or homes to the bank because they could not make payments. They did not expect to lose their jobs so suddenly and many did not have any savings,” she said.
The situation is so bad that some former employees had considered suicide, said Malee, adding that a few even tried to take their own lives.
Former Yarnapund workers are still camping out in front of Government House, in a protest to demand severance pay.
Too old to work?
Aree, 59, has been deputy chief of accounting at a large firm for several years now. However, as soon as she turned 55 – the company’s mandatory retirement age – she found herself at a disadvantage.
“My employer agreed to extend my contract if I was willing to have my salary halved,” she said. “I was also told to work six days a week instead of five.”
Aree said she had no option but to accept because there was nothing better available. She still has to pay for her children’s education, and at 59, finding a similar job would not be easy.
“If you look at the vacancies, you realise that older staff are offered wages as low as 80 or 90 baht per hour and given just a few hours of work per week. This results in very low income,” she said.
According to Jobsdb by SEEK, a leading employment platform, around 13 million Thais aged 55 and over remain in the labour market, but many face age- or status-related barriers that limit their opportunities.
The platform’s managing director, Duangporn Promon, said companies that steered clear of such biases were better able to spot true talent.
“Don’t focus on age or background, just pay attention to meaningful skills and experience,” she urged.
Not experienced enough
Around 358,000 Thais were unemployed in the final quarter of 2024, the majority of them fresh graduates, according to the the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC).
A recent Rajabhat University graduate said he had been hunting for a job since June last year but found nothing so far.
“I feel really bad,” he said, adding that he has shed tears of frustration at his situation.
Assoc Prof Dr Thanawat Polvichai, president of the Private Higher Education Institutions of Thailand, said that around 81,000 fresh graduates have been unemployed for over a year because they don’t have skills required in a fast-changing environment.
“The job market wants people who can fulfil tasks that AI [artificial intelligence] can’t handle,” he said.
Upskill & reskill
Senator Lae Dilokvidhyarat, an academic in labour economics, said Thailand’s dismal job scene reflects the country’s labour policies, which have focused on unskilled labour for far too long.
“When workers are unskilled, disruptive technology can just make them obsolete,” he said.
Nuch, for example, was efficient at her job of spotting flawed electronic components and removing them from the supply chain.
Yet, despite her many years of experience, she lacks additional skills to advance in her existing career or switch to a new path.
Senator Lae said the Labour Ministry’s Department of Skill Development (DSD) would have to consider such problems when offering job training to the public. He also advised the government to coordinate with employers on skill development lessons.
Kiatanantha Lounkaew, a lecturer at Thammasat University’s Faculty of Economics, said US President Donald Trump’s renewed tariff war presented Thailand with an opportunity to upskill its labour force.
“If companies find Thai workers to be efficient, they will invest in Thailand despite the heavy tariffs,” he said.
No minimum wage hike
The plight of Thai workers was made worse when the Labour Ministry recently ruled out a further hike in the daily minimum wage while companies were under pressure from tariff increases.
The minimum wage was raised to 337 baht-400 baht, depending on the province, at the start of this year.
However, opposition People’s Party MP Sia Jampathong points out that the freeze will prevent Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from fulfilling her Pheu Thai Party’s election pledge to raise the minimum daily wage to 600 baht by 2027.
The National Congress of Thai Labour has submitted nine worker-related demands to the government, though curiously none calls for a wage increase. The core demand is for a monthly pension of 5,000 baht for retirees who have paid into the social security scheme.
