SMEs not ready for wage hike

Business > Economics

Published: 10/02/2012 at 12:16 PM
Online news: Economics

More than half of the small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) surveyed recently would not raise the daily minimum wage paid to their employees to 300 baht to comply with the policy of the government, Abac Poll announced on Friday by Abac Poll.

The Social Innovation Management and Business Analysis Centre at Assumption University and the Personnel Administration Association jointly conducted an opinion survey on “the 300 baht wage policy and SMEs reaction” from Feb 6 to 9. The pollsters sought opinions from 715 small- and medium-manufacturers nationwide.

A total of 56.9 per cent of the respondents said they would not increase the daily wage to 300 baht, 38.7 per cent of them would do so and 4.4 per cent said they would pay theincrease but would have to lay off a number of workers.

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johninbkk
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Discussion 5 : 12/02/2012 at 05:50 PM5
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ricefield D4 - "300 Bt per day isn't exactly what anyone could call 'extremely high' it's barely a subsistence wage."
I agree that 300 baht/day is barely a subsistence wage in Thailand. But we live in an international world where wages are much less in other nearby SEA countries. With an uncompetitive wage, jobs will go elsewhere - resulting in a wage of 0 baht for many. To keep wages high, Thailand must compete by increasing employee skill and efficiency.
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ricefield
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Discussion 4 : 11/02/2012 at 01:47 AM4
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Make the penalty for not following the minimum wage so high it's not to the SMEs advantage to go against the law. Something like 10,000 Bt per day per employee. Bet they don't violate it then. Just for general interest, a lot of the SME's don't even give the existing minimum wage.

Disc 3 - 300 Bt per day isn't exactly what anyone could call "extremely high" it's barely a subsistence wage.
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johninbkk
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Discussion 3 : 10/02/2012 at 05:29 PM3
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Raising the minimum wage is a PTP promise I hope they break. But how to explain this to unskilled workers who don't understand the negatives of raising a minimum wage?

In other news, Greece just reduced it's minimum wage by 20% as an attempt to make it's work force price competitive to other countries in Europe. The extremely high wages had resulted in severe drops in exports, making debt payoff very hard to do. Thailand has a high debt . . . think about that.
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yik
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Discussion 2 : 10/02/2012 at 02:32 PM2
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'policy of the government' should take the overall economic reality into account, before commanding wage increases. The private sector must survive within the framework of today, if this is getting more and more difficult, the private sector may leave and relocate.
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khunbj
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Discussion 1 : 10/02/2012 at 01:13 PM1
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SME's and employers in general will never ever be ready for a wage hike .... why give anything away if they can avoid it ... it's like this everywhere...subject to discussion and action.
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SMEs not ready for wage hike | Bangkok Post: business