Thailand’s job creation recovers in Q3, but Gen Y’s NPLs a cause for worry: NESDC
Thailand’s job creation in the third quarter improved, but Gen Y people, who are the main work force, still contributed to a high rate of non-performing loans (NPLs), the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council reported.
In its report on Thai employment and society, the NESDC Office said on Wednesday that about 39.6 million people were employed in the third quarter, an increase of 2.1% from the same period of last year.
The NESDC said most of the employment — 27.2 million jobs — were in the agricultural sector, which saw a 4.3% increase in employment.
The retail sector saw a 4.5% increase in employment, hotels and restaurants 8.3%, and production a 1.4% increase.
The NESDC Office said the third quarter saw employees of all sectors on average work 42.5 hours per week while employees of the private sector worked 46.7 hours per week. About 6.8 million workers work overtime while the number of those who are virtually unemployed or work fewer than four hours a week, dropped to 1.9 million, similar to the pre-Covid situation.
The third quarter saw 490,000 workers unemployed, or 1.23% of the whole workforce, while real unemployment fell to 1.99%, which was a reduction for both workers who used to work and those who have never been employed, the NESDC Office added.
The office noted that while the employment rate rose in the third quarter, the real salary rates of both the private sector and all sectors contracted by 1.7% and 3.1% compared to the same quarter of last year.
The NESDC Office said there are 25 million debtors in the loan system monitored by the Credit Bureau during the third quarter. The debtors are divided by types of loans as:
- Credit card debt (529 billion baht)
- Personal loans (2.5 trillion baht)
- Auto loans (2.5 trillion baht)
- Housing loans (4.7 trillion baht)
- Agricultural loans (1 trillion baht).
The NESDC Office said overall NPLs amounted to 1.09 trillion, or 8.4 %, a drop from 8.6% (1.1 trillion baht) during the same period of last year.
The NESDC Office said auto loans and personal loans were most worrying.
It said about 1.08 million accounts of auto loans were approved during the past nine months and 53% of them are Gen Y people, who have either defaulted on the loans or had late payments of debt.
The NESDC Office said the auto loans saw 6.5% of NPLs, similar to the same rate of the previous quarter and the Gen Y debtors, who are between 25-42 years old, became the biggest group of NPLs debtors amounting to 340 billion baht of NPLs, or 92,000 NPL accounts.
The NESDC Office noted that the Gen Y workers, who are 25 to 42 years old, are the main workforce of the country. The NPLs of this group indicated rising cost and rising interest rates so the NESDC has recommended that the government implement more economic stimulus measures to increase the income of this group.
