The country’s official jobless rate was 1.1% in the second quarter, little changed from 1.05% in the previous quarter, with employment rising as the economy recovered, the government said on Tuesday.
The economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, driven by strength in tourism, a key source of jobs that was decimated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Employment rose 1.7% in the April-June period from a year earlier, with 39.7 million people employed, government spokesperson Trisuree Trisoranakul said in a statement.
The pace, however, slowed from a 2.4% annualised rise in the first quarter, when the jobless rate was the lowest since early 2020, before the economy felt the full impact of the pandemic.
“Overall labour situation indicators have improved with no worrying signs,” Ms Trisuree said.
The government’s definition of unemployment is narrow, however, and the official figures are given little credence by businesses and economists.
People are only counted as jobless if they do not work a single hour in a surveyed week. Consequently, the figures do not reflect activity on the country’s large informal economy.