Skilled labour shortage tops CEOs' concerns for first half of 2013

The issue was only in sixth place in the April 30 survey on the economic outlook of chief executives by the Thai Listed Companies Association and Kasikorn Research Centre, Pensri Suteerasarn, president of the association, said yesterday.

The latest survey covered 81 companies in nine sectors.

Global economic uncertainty shot up to second place from seventh, while domestic social conflict stayed at third.

For all of 2013, a global recession and local political instability are the two risk factors for economic expansion, even though one-third of the CEOs believe that Thai gross domestic product in 2013 will be 4.5-5 per cent bigger.

The economic policies of the government and the export outlook are the third and fourth risks.

The nationwide increase in the daily minimum wage on January 1 is the new risk. To ease the impact of higher labour costs, 41 per cent of CEOs said their companies had already increased productivity and the rest said they were planning to improve productivity.

Manpower training and organisational restructuring are the second and third policies to deal with the economic uncertainty.

Companies are focusing more on investment. The survey showed that the policy of increasing investment has climbed to sixth place from 10th in the previous survey.

Charl Kengchon, managing director of KResearch, said the upcoming Asean Economic Community was also spurring companies to invest more overseas. About 80 per cent of private investment is in Asean countries.

Investment abroad by Thai companies this year is expected to grow to US$10 billion (Bt306 billion) from $8.2 billion.

Thai overseas investment in the first eight months was $8.2 billion against foreign direct investment of $6 billion. Last year, FDI was $7.8 billion.

Over the next 12 months, 83 per cent of the CEOs said they planned to boost investment and only 5 per cent said they planned to cut investment.