Small and medium-sized business owners are planning a meeting with the Move Forward Party’s (MFP) prime ministerial candidate later this month to deliberate a proposal for increasing the minimum wage.
The Federation of Thai SMEs has announced a meeting with Prime Ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat scheduled for June 13, with the agenda to center around his proposal to raise the minimum wage to 450 baht per day. This wage hike was a key policy presented by MFP during its election campaign, as it pledged to implement the new rate within its first 100 days in office.
Norathep Boonkep, Secretary-General of the Federation of Thai SMEs, indicated that the proposed wage increase could have a significant impact on business owners already facing high operational costs. SMEs currently employ over 12 million workers.
However, Norathep clarified that the federation is not opposing the proposal outright, but rather hopes to arrive at an appropriate rate through comprehensive discussions and the existing trilateral mechanism. Furthermore, Norathep expressed the federation’s interest in implementing skill-based wages, as highly skilled workers could greatly contribute to the advancement of the business sector.
He also noted that SMEs are still recovering from the pandemic and that the economic outlook for the second half of the year appears promising, largely due to ongoing recovery in the tourism sector. (NNT)
