English-language proficiency, leadership skills and cross-cultural adaption are the main weak points of Thai employees, who must improve to meet rising competition in the upcoming Asean Economic Community (AEC), says recruitment consultancy Robert Walters Plc.
Founder and chief executive Robert Walters said the advent of the AEC late next year will increase demand for bilingual personnel, particularly those with English literacy.
"The high demand for staff with English-language skills is likely to increase further when the AEC is launched," Mr Walters said in an interview with the Bangkok Post. He said salaries can increase by 20-25% for those proficient in English and who can work for international companies.
Leadership and cross-cultural adaptation are other major areas Thai employees need to brush up on the better to compete in the AEC's employment market.
"Now many companies are looking for employees who can take the lead role among international employees," said Mr Walters. He said his company expects less than 1% employee migration when the AEC allows the free flow of skilled labour across borders.
Meanwhile, regional integration will result in higher demand for jobs in various industries including accounting and finance, banking and information technology (IT). For accounting and finance, companies currently tend to look for staff with long-term experience in taxes or have a background with an international company.
IT and software development have recently taken off in Asia, especially "big data" analysis. This has lead to huge demand for staff who specialise in cloud computing and data recovery. Yet there remains a major dearth of employees with English-language proficiency in the IT as well as banking and finance sectors.
The AEC will see salary hikes of 20-25% for employees who change jobs compared with 5-10% for those remaining in the same job.
With 53 offices in 24 countries, Robert Walters recruits in a variety of fields.