EEC will require an additional one million workers

THE EASTERN Economic Corridor (EEC) policy committee has agreed to focus on educational measures to address the problem of labour shortage in the region, allocating Bt725 million to train and improve the quality of teachers, lecturers and students in the economic corridor.

Of the one million workers required, a labour shortage in the digital industry is most severe, needing up to 280,000 additional workers over the next decade. According to Kanit, the Board of Investment has stressed the importance of training employees in the digital industry, since many companies planning to relocate to the EEC have expressed the need to bring in foreign workers for departments such as software engineering due to the lack of local talent.

“Labour shortage has always been a key challenge for the EEC as well as for the wider Thailand 4.0 policy, and we have been trying to address this issue since day one,” he said.

Kanit Sangsubhan, secretary-general of the EEC Office

“Research has shown that in the next 10 years, the targeted S-Curve industries in the EEC will require an additional one million workers,” Kanit Sangsubhan, secretary-general of the EEC Office, told the press at Government House on Friday morning. Kanit spoke to the press after an EEC policy committee meeting with the prime minister.