COVID-19 crisis drives rise in long-term unemployment in Thailand

The Nation/Asia News Network

BANGKOK — The number of long-term unemployed people or those without a job for more than a year has risen sharply since the arrival of Covid-19 in January 2020, the National Statistical Office of Thailand (NSOT) announced on Tuesday.

NSOT director Piyanuch Wutthisorn said the long-term unemployed group expanded to 118,000 people in the last quarter of last year compared to 35,000 in the same period of 2020.

Most of those in the long-term unemployment group are between the ages of 15 and 30, Piyanuch said, adding that the numbers in the fourth quarter of 2021 improved slightly from the previous quarter. For instance, she said, the situation for 15- to 24-year-olds improved from 8.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2021 to 7.2 per cent unemployed in the fourth quarter.

She added that the number of “semi-unemployed” in the fourth quarter of 2021 rose to 2.61 million from 2.56 million from the previous quarter. The semi-unemployed are those that work no more than 20 hours a week in the agricultural sector and no more than 24 hours per week in non-agricultural sectors.

However, Piyanuch said, this semi-unemployed group may lose their hours or become completely unemployed soon.

She said the employment situation improved in the last quarter of 2021 because the government eased Covid-19 restrictions and more workers returned to the service, trade and manufacturing sectors. The employment rate in the last quarter of 2021 stood at 6.63 per cent with most of the jobs based in service and trade sectors, she said.

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