Thailand's some 130,000 workers become jobless, 600,000 others not return to work

BANGKOK, December 7 (TNA) - The Thai Ministry of Labour says that some 130,000 outsourced workers are expected to lose their jobs due to the country's massive flooding this year; while more than 600,000 employees have not yet returned to work. Arthit Issamo, Director-General of the ministry’s Department of Labour Protection and Welfare, told reporters that over 15,400 flood-hit firms nationwide have resumed their production and taken back over 35,000 workers, as the flooding situation in their respective areas has been returning to normal. Nonetheless, more than 13,200 firms employing over 642,300 workers have remained closed with some 130,000 of their workers, mostly outsourced employees in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani Provinces in the central Thai region, expected to be then laid-off. To this extent, the director-general acknowledged that his ministry has, therefore, prepared assistances measures for the flood-affected workers, including organizing job fairs at industrial sites, beginning from on December 16, to help them finding new jobs. Furthermore, Arthit said, his ministry has sent out officials to convince local employers to join an official unemployment prevention and relief program under which participating firms pledge not to lay off their workers for the next three months. The employers are to pay their workers at least 75 per cent of their normal wages monthly; while the government is to share their burden by offering a financial support of some 2,000 baht per month to each worker for three months. According to the senior Thai Labour Ministry official, the program targets to help maintain some 300,000 jobs. So far, some 200,000 local workers have joined the program. Thailand’s flooding crisis this year, said to be the worst in several decades, have ravaged 31 provinces, including some parts of Bangkok, affecting over 28,000 firms and more than 9.9 million workers. (TNA)