Ageing workforce hits industrial-sector productivity, says TDRI report
The industrial sector's labour force is ageing, adversely affecting productivity, said Srawooth Paitoonpong, a senior researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI). Srawooth said his studies between 1991 and 2010 found changes in the
There were 38.1 million labourers in 2010, 7.8 million working in the industrial sector.
The number of workers in the manufacturing sector was 5.4 million, with the rest in construction, waterworks and other utilities, he said in his study, released by TDRI yesterday, he said.
Traditionally, the industrial-sector labour force has been younger than those in the agricultural and service sectors. However, the age of industrial workers is increasing, reflecting a trend of the country’s overall population, he said.
The number of young workers had plunged from 55 per cent in 1991 to nearly 21 per cent of the total labour force in 2010.
And the number of older workers rose to 20 per cent of total labourers in 2010 from 12 per cent 20 years ago, he said.
The causes are the Kingdom’s lower birth rate and the trend for young people to spend more years in educational institutions.
“The average age of a labourer was 32 in 2010, up from 27 in 2004,” said Srawooth.
“The rising proportion of ageing workers has had a negative impact on labour productivity, so training is needed to improve older workers’ productivity,” he suggested.
In regard to the education level of workers, Srawooth found that the proportion of workers who have middle and higher education levels had increased. The ratio of workers with a junior high school education or lower dropped from 86 per cent in 1991 to 68 per cent in 2010.
Workers with a high school education increased from 10 per cent to 17.4 per cent. Those with a higher education diploma rose from 5 per cent to 14 per cent.
Now each year there are fewer than 100,000 new labourers to replace the low-level educated workers, while demand is up.
About 400,000 workers leave the labour market each year because of retirement, death or other reasons.
The industrial sector is likely to face a shortage of unskilled labour, he said.
The percentage of women who work |is 63.5 per cent, while the figure for men is 80 per cent. This is because many women choose to stay at home instead of seeking jobs. Women labourers accounted for 45.5 per cent of the total, while men represented 54.5 per cent, he said.
The Thai population was about 34.3 million women and 33.1 million men, he said.
