According to a recent report, a global professional recruitment consultancy firm released its Employment Outlook 2019 for Thailand highlighting a significant upward trend in hiring within robotics and automation.
The Regional Director for the firm noted that Thailand 4.0 will continue to have a positive impact on the country and its employment landscape. The firm foresees a specific focus on progression with industrial automation, digitalisation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).
With heavy investments in these areas, skilled experts can look forward to strong career prospects. According to the report, e-commerce companies are experiencing the fastest new headcount growth in Thailand currently, often seeking senior professionals with online media, digital and software development experience.
The director noted that the drive to attract top talent in digital has sparked a lot of movement in the market with companies offering attractive compensation packages such as flexible benefits tailored to the individual.
That includes annual leave, private medical and work from home arrangements. To strengthen their career paths, job seekers pursue exposure to emerging technologies such as Big Data, IoT and back to front-end mobile apps development.
As a result, the talent race in technology will intensify across 2019. The report indicates a 15% increase in the number of technology jobs posted in Thailand in the last 12 months. Successful job movers can expect a premium 20 to 25% salary hike.
Thai companies and multinationals in the industrial space are developing succession planning and knowledge transfer strategies by replacing expatriate employees with locals. Thai professionals looking to step up to management positions will have to boost their communications and leadership skills.
In addition, Thailand’s employers need to be aware that the savvy and well-educated millennial professional is more attracted to the exciting start-ups and newer organisations.
More traditional firms will have to effectively communicate their brand heritage and understand their enthusiasm for making a swift impact in an organisation to attract the millennial talent pool.
Helping the digital economy thrive
Boosting Thailand’s international competitiveness is key to the economy’s sustainable growth over the next two decades, another report notes.
Besides the EEC programme, appropriate timing in the auctioning of fifth-generation (5G) telecom service is also crucial to global competitiveness.
The new government has been urged to, therefore, review current policy, which is aimed at maximising state benefits from the auction in the form of highest monetary bids and shift the focus to actual development benefits to be derived from the game-changing adoption of 5G technology.
In the agricultural sector, digital, e-commerce, big data, Internet-of-Things (IoT), sensor and other technologies are essential to boosting productivity, while reducing costs to stay competitive and in touch with the younger generations of consumers and business partners.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need the same technologies to survive the so-called tech disruption, in which online and offline businesses are being merged seamlessly. The government’s task is to educate, train and re-skill SME entrepreneurs as well as provide financial resources, including loans and grants, to help them adopt the latest successful business models.
In this context, everyone should be involved. Both urban and rural community-based enterprises should be covered by the government’s aid programme.
In addition, the rules and regulations, especially those governing the issuance of official permits, need to be more transparent so there is no need for government officials to exercise individual judgement, which is often a main source of corruption.
Overall, key issues are obvious concerning legal reforms for less corruption and economic equality, as well as for better income redistribution and international economic competitiveness via infrastructure investments and adoption of 5G and other disruptive digital technologies.
