Social Security Office draws up new workers' compensation rates

The chairperson of a sub-panel assigned to set the contribution rate, Wichitsri Sa-nguanwong, said the SSO adjusted its code system for businesses covered by the Fund to be in line with those of the Thailand Standard Industrial Classification (TSIC).

The new SSO system has 21 categories and 1,091 codes, compared to 16 categories and 131 codes previously. It has finer detail, which could be applied to the contribution rate the fund collects from employers, and should better reflect the reality of work risks, she said.

The change would also enable Workers’ Compensation Fund data to be of an international standard, and thus to better link with various agencies to help protect and develop Thai labour, she added. 

The livestock business, for example, used to be coded vaguely as livestock or fishery, she said. But the new coding would identify animal types such as pigs or egg chickens, because raising chickens for eggs had more risk than other animals due to bird flu or other diseases. So the contribution collected from these sorts of employers would be bigger than other less-risky businesses. 

Wichitsri said there were 342,084 business establishments covering over 8.5 million workers currently registered with the fund. The contribution rate according to business risk was between 0.2 and 1 per cent and adjusted according to the workplace accident rate and compensation payments made to injured workers.

The new contribution rate would also consider the workplace accident rate over one year – not several years like before – in order to ensure fairness to employers and to benefit high-risk workers, Wichitsri said. This could mean that while an employer contributes Bt20,000 a year now, he might pay Bt13,000 under the new rate. The new rates would be complete by next year and ready to be submitted for approval and implementation by 2015.