Thailand opens skill development centers for auto workers

BANGKOK, January 9 (TNA) - Thailand has set up skill training and developmet centers for workers in the auto and auto parts industries to solve their problem of labor shortages and to be part of national preparations for the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. Witsanu Pannavorn, Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of Labor's Department of Skill Development, told journalists of the update on Thursday, noting that foreign investors have continued investing in the Thai auto and auto parts industries, with even a rising trend expected after the formation of the AEC, making Thailand to have the potential to become an auto and auto part production base in the region and even in the world. Witsanu acknowledged that the growing Thai auto and auto part industries have begun resulting in a labor shortage and caused them to depend on migrant workers, expected at 120,000 out of a total of 600,000 workers needed in the local auto and auto part industries, most of whom are unskilled workers and have caused production delay and sub-standard produce. To solve the problems, the senior official said that the National Board of Vocational Training Coordination has set up skill training and development centers or institutes for the auto and auto parts workers in several Thai provinces to help train them to have medium to high skill levels in order to support Thailand's target to become a regional and even a global auto and auto parts hub in the future. According to the senior official, Thailand has targeted to further increase national auto production capacity to four million units annually by 2020, from two million units currently, and additional 200,000 workers are, thus, needed. (TNA)