Phasakorn Channgam
Thai companies need to quickly upgrade the
English-language skills of their workforce or face widespread job losses
when it takes effect in 2015, Chonburi’s deputy governor warned Pattaya
business leaders.
Chonburi Deputy Mayor
Pongsak Preechawit.
“It is a troublesome issue,” Pongsak Preechawit said
of the country’s generally poor English proficiency. “Language is vital.
It’s is necessary that the labor force start learning and understanding
the importance of the universal language: English.”
Speaking at the Pattaya Business & Tourism
Association’s April 11 meeting, the deputy governor said information he
has received from ASEAN and foreign companies in Thailand is not good.
For example, Pongsak said, at Sumitomo Corp.’s Thailand subsidiary, 86
of the 100 Thai engineers employed by the Japanese company cannot
understand English.
“Thailand’s entrance into the ASEAN Economic
Community is worrisome due to the freedom of movement labor in seven
industries will have,” Pongsak told the business leaders. “The tourism
sector needs to bring its labor force’s skills and knowledge in line
with other ASEAN countries to prevent Thai workers from being replaced
by foreign labor.”
Noting that Chonburi has seven industrial parks -
comprised in large part by foreign-owned companies - Pongsak said that,
“Thailand will certainly face troubles in labor replacement … if workers
cannot communicate in other languages for entrance into the AEC in
2015.”
