PasaNINJA’s recent blog about medical tourism highlights the fact that Thailand is attractive to foreigners because of high levels of care and customer service by Thai nurses.  In a sense, it is the same reason that so many regular tourists come to Thailand. Borikarn pen kan eng.  Or service with a smile.  It’s what Thailand and Thai people do exceptionally well.

And this standard of care and attention to customers needs is a very exportable skill. One would think that more Thai people in the service industries could work overseas in particular in the nursing, hotel and leisure and health and beauty sectors.    Although its economy is more fragile the Philippines for example is far more successful than Thailand in exporting workers in the service industries. Not only maids. But also nurses, singers, hotel workers, beauticians and spa workers.  I.e. sectors where Thai people are particularly skilled and where foreign countries may experience a shortage of domestic workers to fill the same roles.

But the reality is that the vast majority of diaspora Thais do not fall into these sectors.  They are either established families who have had a western education and settled abroad into western style lives and careers, in particular in business, banking, medicine and law, and also of course Thai restaurateurs, or they are the unfortunate victims of people trafficking who end up on the news headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Lots of Thai people say that they would love to go and work abroad.  It would be good for Thailand’s current account and moreover good for Thai families back home benefiting from the remittances of their overseas relatives.  And certainly Thailand has been making progress in some niche sectors.  But overall Thailand seems to lag behind its larger ASEAN neighbours.  There appear to be two major stumbling blocks.

Foreign language ability

Lots of Thai bloggers on this site have commented to the effect ‘why should we have to learn English’.  Well I guess that is a fair enough point.  When in Rome and all.  Foreign language learning is a major growth sector in Thailand.  But it remains clear, certainly for English language, that most Thais lag some considerable way behind their Singaporean, Malaysian, Filipino and even Cambodian counterparts.  I sense that the same could probably be said of other languages too. 

When I visited a High Dependancy Hospital ward in the UK earlier this year, many of the nurses were Filipino and doctors were Malay.  Their qualifications and skills were excellent, but as importantly, they spoke fluent English. Why are so many hotel singers in Thailand Filipinos?  It isn’t because they are better singers, because they are not.  It’s because they can sing well in English.

OK if Thai people have no desire to work any where other than Thailand, of course.  But if they want to work overseas then it will be a major obstacle.  Certainly for the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand.  But also for major European and Asian countries including Germany, France, Sweden, China and Japan. 

If more Thai people in the service sectors could speak foreign languages to a high standard, there would be significant opportunities for them to gain employment abroad.  Thailand’s relative weakness on foreign languages is a major block on a wealth of employment and wealth generation opportunities, of that I am sure.

Getting your documentation all correct

Another critical problem that I perceive is that, while so many Thai workers have excellent skills and qualifications, they do not always have sufficient documentation to enable them to gain permission to work abroad.

Just finding an employer willing to offer a job in a foreign country is not enough.  Many countries’ Governments will expect foreign workers to prove that they have several years relevant working experience (for example, at least 3 years for the UK) and that they have qualifications up to a pre-defined standard, before being prepared to issue a work permit.  This requires both original certificates from legitimate schools and training institutions. 

And as importantly, it requires work reference letters from previous places of employment.  Certainly for Thailand, many employers appear unwilling to issue employment reference letters, possibly because they do not want to lose good staff to other employers.  But in fact this employment practice is very unfair towards the employee.   Because a Thai person might have excellent experience and great qualifications, but be unable to take up legitimate work opportunities because they cannot obtain an employment reference letter for the purposes of applying for a work permit in a foreign country.  This difficulty in providing, genuine and original documentation is more difficult to overcome than a basic lack of language skills. 

If Thailand were able to up its game on foreign language learning and make it easier for employees to obtain valid documents of employment, many many more Thai people would have opportunities to work abroad than now.

Other blogs by me

Helping farangs to speak better Thai.

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/poomjai/2008/02/23/entry-1

Tourism Thai: much more than meets the eye.

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/poomjai/2007/11/29/entry-1

Delicious Thai food in Southampton?? YES!

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/poomjai/2007/10/16/entry-1

Why are Thai girls cuter than Farang girls?

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/poomjai/2007/12/28/entry-2

A good English teacher should be able to speak Thai, nair norn!

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/poomjai/2007/11/20/entry-1

If you want to speak Thai, then read Thai!

http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/poomjai/2007/11/18/entry-1