Labourers at a construction site on Charan Sanitwong Road. Automation is expected to hit a big proportion of Thailand's workforce.PAWAT LAOPAISARNTAKSIN

The government is being urged by an employers' organisation to step up on measures and mechanisms to cushion wage workers from the potential impact of the proliferation of machines and robots over the next decade.

Thanit Sorat, vice-chairman of the Employers' Confederation of Thai Trade and Industry, who attended an International Labour Organisation meeting in Geneva recently, said the ILO has warned innovation and technology will pose a greater threat in the foreseeable future, with about 44% of wage workers in Southeast Asian countries expected to lose their jobs to robots and automation during the next decade.

"It's necessary for the Thai government to accelerate upgrading labour skills," he said, noting that many Thai wage workers remain poverty-stricken and are ageing.

According to Mr Thanit, the government's Thailand 4.0 economic model, which focuses on innovations and high technology to create more value-added products, is also expected to aggravate the plight of unskilled workers.

Of 37 million Thai workers, he said up to 46% only have at most a primary school education, with most of them in the agriculture sector and aged 40-50 years.

Mr Thanit predicted Thailand's unemployment rate over the next decade may rise in line with that of developed countries, which are now reliant on technology and machinery.

Thanit: Unemployment rate may rise

The unemployment rate in Germany, for instance, now stands at 6.2-6.3% of the total workforce, with that of Japan, Taiwan and Singapore at 3.4-3.5%.

He proposed that the Thai government introduce training programmes to help Thai workers upgrade their skills.

According to the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), 30% of the country's total 37.3 million workers, or about 11.2 million are in the agricultural sector, with 6.4 million in the wholesale and retail sector, 2.7 million in tourism sector, 1.3 million in construction and the rest in the manufacturing sector.

The government's planning unit also recently warned automation will soon come to replace human resources, especially in banking and retail, and urged related agencies to plan ahead.

NESDB's secretary-general Porametee Vimolsiri said finance and retail will be one of the first sectors that apply technology and innovations to make their services easier accessible to its customers and clients. This will cause changes in labour demand both for qualifications and compensation.

Lae Dilokvidhyarat of Chulalongkorn University's faculty of economics, told a recent seminar on Thailand's labour outlook that while the government has touted the Thailand 4.0 policy as a master plan to free the country from the so-called middle-income trap, it must also consider the fact that the majority of people in the country are low-income workers who have to live on minimum daily wages.

Mr Lae said many workers have not been given the opportunity to improve their working skills.