Hundreds dismissed due to wage hike

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Hundreds dismissed due to wage hike

Published: 8 Jan 2013 at 12.13
Online news: Game

Since the government's blanket enforcement of the 300-baht daily minimum wage took effect nationwide on Jan 1, 275 workers had been sacked in the first four days of the year, Labour Minister Padermchai Sasomsap said on Tuesday.

Photo by Somchai Poomlard

According to the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, four factories had been hard hit by the government's wage policy and had dismissed a total of 275 workers between Jan 1 and 4.

"Two more factories will likely sack another 480 workers soon and there are five other factories that appear to have liquidity problems and the contracts of 999 workers there will expire," Mr Padermchai said.

Finance permanent secretary Areepong Bhucha-oom confirmed the Ministry of Finance will propose five measures to ease the impact of the new 300 baht daily minimum wage on small- and medium-sized businesses to the cabinet meeting today.

Mr Padermchai said last week the first proposal was to reduce official fees collected from small- and medium-sized hotels by 50% for three years. The fee currently stands at 80 baht per occupied room.

The second involves organising workshops to develop the skills of workers in educational institutions and companies.

The other proposals include increasing the payment for organising government-sponsored seminars, so that private firms involved would get more revenue, organising events to sell consumer products at cheap prices, and tax reductions for SMEs, down from 3% to 2%.

Mr Areepong said on Monday that the Finance Ministry will ask the cabinet to consider raising the income tax exemption limit from 150,000 baht to 300,000 baht for small- and medium-enterprises with annual revenue below 50 million baht.

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boons
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Discussion 13 : 11 Jan 2013 at 02.3713
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D12: Exactly. The political spin attached to the minimum wage issue typically casts business owners as some kind of billionaires. The reality is that it's middle-income small-business owners that are closing shop.

There's a reason that in the Soviet Union all the store shelves were empty. It wasn't worth it for businesses to make bread (or anything else). This is the problem with trying to force businesses to comply with central planning. It doesn't work.

You can't dictate economics. The market is what it is. It's estimated that over 2 million jobs will be lost as a result of this program. This is still the first week.
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englishbob
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Discussion 12 : 09 Jan 2013 at 12.1912
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Disc6 Bkk1 - "Is this really a problem of can not afford the min wage or is it just owners not want to make less profit then before"

Try to stop thinking about business owners as rich, elite fat cats driving around in Mercedes Benz.
Start thinking about them as most of them really are - middle class, hard working people trying to make a living.

Then your question should be "Why is the government making the business owner take a pay cut even though he still has to work harder than ever?"
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loyhaasip1
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Discussion 11 : 08 Jan 2013 at 23.5111
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Disc 8
I remember your post over 1 year ago very clearly stating that this was the expected result - unfortunately, it appears that the government (or anybody else for that matter) did not listen to your expert advice.
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loyhaasip1
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Discussion 10 : 08 Jan 2013 at 23.3810
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275 workers sacked in 4 days! The country is doomed! What is all this hysteria about?
The working population of Thailand, I believe is more than 30 million! Do you seriously believe this is the sign that the country is now about to collapse? God save us from "educated" farangs!
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Mister2012
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Discussion 9 : 08 Jan 2013 at 17.039
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It's sad and not unexpected.
Im pretty sure the populist politicians who came up with the idea also knew that.
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SawGeorge
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Discussion 8 : 08 Jan 2013 at 16.178
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It was not unexpected...the problem was expected more than a year ago but the government failed to come up with a solution for both parties and now only the workers have to bear the brunt...
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mrsdonesh
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Discussion 7 : 08 Jan 2013 at 15.287
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Its not just the B300 per day its the flow-on that hurts as well. Staff member "A" was receiving B280 per day with 2 years experience. New staff "B" now getting B300. "A" requests that their pay be adjusted accordingly. Flow-on now impacts upon company earnings. Outcome is obvious.
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bkk1
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Discussion 6 : 08 Jan 2013 at 14.166
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Is this really a problem of can not afford the min wage or is it just owners not want to make less profit then before
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Eric
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Discussion 5 : 08 Jan 2013 at 13.295
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The Labour Department must look into setting up a department to match the retrenched workers with companies needing workers. The department should also provide some training for purpose of matching. We have a full employment and will not be hard to match both sides.
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bkk-farang
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Discussion 4 : 08 Jan 2013 at 12.554
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So now the Ministry of Finance will propose “organising workshops to develop the skills of workers”.
These workshops should have started long before the salary increase because factories would be willing to pay more money for better skilled workers.
But obviously nobody in the Shinawatra family though about simple things like that before they promised more money to the workers. When will they start to learn before they make any promises?
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