BANGKOK: Thailand's employment growth slowed in the July-September period, reaching the lowest rate in five quarters, dragged down by weak exports, official data showed today, reported Xinhua.
The southeast Asian country's labour force amounted to 40.1 million individuals in the third quarter of this year, representing a 1.3 per cent year-on-year increase, a slowdown from an expansion of 1.7 per cent in the previous three months, according to the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC).
The growth was mainly due to an expansion of employment in the agricultural sector, which rose 2.0 per cent year-on-year to 12.6 million jobs, the NESDC said in a statement.
For non-farm sectors, employment in hotels and restaurants jumped 8.3 percent from a year earlier, attributed to a nearly double increase in inbound tourists.
Meanwhile, manufacturing employment increased by 0.6 per cent in response to production for domestic consumption. However, employment in export-oriented manufacturing dropped amid weak global demand, the statement said.
The kingdom's unemployment rate was registered at 0.99 per cent in the third quarter, edging down from 1.06 per cent in the April-June period, according to the NESDC. — Bernama