Thailand Law Journal 2009 Spring Issue 1 Volume 12

As noted, we do not have a statistically representative sample, given the selection of industries and the endogenous selection associated with the participation of firms in the project--limitations resulting mainly from the project's budgetary constraints. By the same token, however, the dataset has important strengths: it includes detailed current and retrospective information on family background, education, and different types of training.

Table 1 shows the distribution of employment by education and industry in the sample (columns 1-4) and in the total labor force (column 5). Because our sample excludes agricultural employment, where average educational attainment in Thailand is very low, and includes only firms with over 100 employees and a young labor force--and younger cohorts in medium to large firms are more educated than average--the fact that it is more educated than the Thai labor force as a whole is not surprising. [FN7] The differences, however, are arresting. The share of employees with only primary education in our sample, for example, is close to zero in three industries out of four and significantly different from zero only in food processing. In Thailand as a whole, this share is as high as 75%. College graduates are 45% of all employees in the personal computers industry, compared to only 9% of employees across the country as a whole.

  Table 1. Distribution of Employees by Education, by Industry, and Overall.  

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                                          Industry                            

                     -----------------------------------------------------------------
  Education     Foodstuffs  Computer       Auto          HDD            National

                                     Electronics    Components    Components   Average  

                                                                                                      (OECD)  

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Primary       0.40        0.00           0.04          0.03             0.75  

Lower         0.19        0.11           0.27          0.26              --    

  Secondary                                                                    

Upper         0.24        0.46           0.37          0.36             0.16  

  Secondary                                                                    

Tertiary      0.17        0.45           0.32          0.35             0.09  

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  Note: Lower and upper secondary education are aggregated together in the national average.

Table 2 presents summary statistics for a selection of variables in the survey for the year 2001, separately for men and women. Women outnumbered men in the sample, which partly reflects the already mentioned fact that women hold the majority of jobs in Thai export-oriented firms.

Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations of the Main Variables, by Gender, 2001.

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                                         Men                            Women          

                              -------------------------------  ---------------------------
Variable                   Mean        Std. Dev.        Mean        Std. Dev.  

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Observations               690                         1,047                  

Wage                      14,386        (8,237)        9,347         (5,260)  

OJT Incidence              0.55       (0.49)          0.67         (0.46)    

OFFJT Incidence         0.67        (0.46)          0.58         (0.48)    

OJT Intensity                2.62        (6.66)         3.18         (7.49)    

OFFJT Intensity           1.57        (3.04)          0.87         (1.56)    

Cumulated OJT            8.95         (22.26)      11.63        (25.9)    

Cumulated OFFJT        6.07         (12.59)      3.93          (6.49)    

Years of Education       12.90         (2.59)      10.67        (3.05)    

Age                              28.26         (5.34)      28.09        (6.31)    

Tenure in 1998              2.58           (3.53)      3.29         (3.72)    

Previous Experience      2.17            (3.45)     2.28         (3.72)    

  in 1998                                                                      

No. Siblings                  3.12            (2.18)      3.36        (2.23)    

Father's Education         0.26                           0.18                  

Mother's Education        0.15                          0.09                  

Oldest Sibling's              0.21                          0.09                  

  Education                                                                    

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[FN7]. Another factor is that several firms in our sample are high-tech.

This article is published with the kind permission of Kenn Ariga and Giorgio Brunello. The article originally appeared in Volume 59, Issue 4, July 2006, of the Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Copyright Cornell University.