Impact of Global Economic Crisis on the Employment and Migrant ...

Employment to population ratio, 15+, total (%)2005 74.50 78.00 70.00 72.502006 74.20 77.70 69.70 72.002007 74.60 77.80 69.50 71.802008 74.60 77.70 69.40 71.50Note: There is no data about trade available in Myanmar.Source: World Data Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI)&<strong>Global</strong> DevelopmentFinance(GDF)This research contributes to develop a framework using a Computable General EquilibriumModel with imperfect labour market conditions due to the minimum wages, the formal andinformal employment as well as the registered and unregistered migrants. It attempts toevaluate the effect on the employment <strong>of</strong> all groups. In addition, a Different in Different methodis initially applied with the CGE to find the real effects <strong>of</strong> economic globalization on theemployment.This paper is classified into six parts. The first part is the introduction. The second partdemonstrates overview <strong>of</strong> the Thai labour market during the recent economic crisis. The thirdpart posits the framework and channels <strong>of</strong> economic crisis effecting on the Thai labour market.To measure the effect <strong>of</strong> economic crisis, not only the trade data used commonly in theprevious studies, but also the other channels representing the economic crisis are introduced inthe analysis. Those channels include technology, flows <strong>of</strong> capital and migrant works provideslinkages among countries through the economic globalization. This approach providescomprehensive evaluation <strong>of</strong> economic crisis on the labour market. The domestic labourconditions are also discussed in this section. The fourth part demonstrates analytical modelsapplied in this study. The fifth section demonstrates the results <strong>of</strong> the economic crisis on theThai Economy. The conclusion and policy implications, as well as the Thai current labour policy,are provided in the last section.2. THAI LABOUR MARKET DURING THE RECENTLY ECONOMIC CRISISThis section highlights the effects <strong>of</strong> economic crisis on the labor market. The overallemployment, the duality <strong>of</strong> the public and private employment, as well as the internationalmigrant workers are investigated in this section.The recently economic crisis in 2009 had a stronger impact on the experienced workers thanthe impact <strong>of</strong> new entries. As can be seen in Table 2.1, the number <strong>of</strong> workers, who ispreviously used to work, jumps from 325 to 433 thousand unemployed persons. Theunemployment increases from about 1.4 in the previous years to 1.6 in 2009. The number <strong>of</strong>new entries to the labour market, instead, has declined. It is possible that there is thesubstitution <strong>of</strong> the new entry to the experienced one, yet the shift up in the employment <strong>of</strong> theexperienced workers is distinguishably far beyond the new entry.