The government plans to increase the number of skilled workers to prevent a labour shortage over the next few years, according to Deputy Commerce Minister Suvit Maesincee.
He said the Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak has assigned relevant agencies to launch a new Pracha Rat (People's State) project to raise the number of workers available to high-tech industries.
"We have discussed this issue with the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) as we have realised that this is a new challenge that we need to tackle in order to achieve Thailand 4.0," Mr Suvit said.
"We need integrated cooperation from the Labour Ministry, the Industry Ministry and the Education Ministry to help produce human resources that match the demand of Thailand 4.0."
He said that some 60% of the total workforce remains in the era of Thailand 1.0, while 30% is stuck in 2.0 and 10% in 3.0.
This signals a serious shortage of skilled labour in the Thailand 4.0 era, he said.
Mr Suvit said the government will seek privileges for new investment in human resource development in order to increase the number of trained and skilled labour to meet demand in the future and prevent unemployment among workers with skills suitable for Thailand 1.0 to Thailand 3.0, who would become redundant.
Thailand 4.0 project is the government policy aimed at developing Thai industry to be high-tech, with mostly small and medium enterprises driving the economy with innovation.
FTI chairman Chen Namchaisiri said the federation has submitted its master plan to develop the work force to meet Thailand 4.0 within 2025 to the government.
According to the plan, human resource development will be done alongside the plan to improve Thai industry from 2.0 to 3.0 within five years.
Furthermore, the FTI will conduct a feasibility study on how to develop supply chains to use domestic raw material to source high-tech industries of efficiently.
"All these projects are expected to be done together with all related parties, not only from the government, but private firms as well," Mr Chen said.