Government to Co-Pay Salaries Of Newly Hired Private Employees

With the unemployment rate rising to precarious levels in Thailand, the government has launched a new co-payment scheme that will encourage companies to continue hiring new members of their staff.

The government recently announced that it will be partially financing the salaries of newly hired members of any private company’s workforce for one year until September 30, 2021.

Under the scheme, the government will co-finance up to THB,7,500 per employee.

In line with this, the government has launched a portal through which interested companies can register themselves to avail of the co-payment assistance.

The campaign will only finance the salaries of the following: newly graduated employees with a bachelor’s degree from any university or college in Thailand, and high school graduates that are at most 25 years old or those that graduated in the school years 2019 and 2020.

This latest copayment is part of the government’s efforts to provide assistance to newly graduated Thais that are still unemployed as a result to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another co-payment scheme will enable non-welfare Thais to have their expenses for daily essentials co-financed by the government.

The program will allow locals to spend up to THB3,000 in certain consumer items and have the government co-finance the expenses. The co-payment scheme will be effective up to the end of 2021 only.

The scheme targets 10 million locals, and is open for registration today until 11 pm. Interested applicants will need a pao tang account, a valid government-issued ID, and personal information like their birthdays, and their contact numbers.

They can register through the Ministry of Finance website, which the government assures can handle applications of up to 100,000 per second.

Upon registering, they will be required to input their personal details and the details of their ID cards. They will then receive a confirmation SMS, as well as the funds directly send to their Pao Tang account.

Successful participants will be able to receive THB3,000 per month or THB150 per day. They can spend this on one of 200,000 participating businesses. These include 115,824 food and drink shops, 42,382 Thong Fah or Blue Flag stores, 9,564 OTOP shops and other 68,878 general stores.

The government hopes that the “50:50” program, as it is referred to by the media, will boost the local economy by encouraging local spending. The economy is currently slowing down due to diminished spending power on the locals’ part.

This diminished spending part, in part, comes from unemployment as businesses closed down in the months following the pandemic.

Tourism-related businesses, which contribute a huge chunk of revenue to the economy, are the hardest hit by the pandemic.

Members of the private sector have revealed last month that tourism-related businesses in Thailand are currently in debt for a total amount of THB100,000. The President of the Tourism Council of Thailand said that some of these businesses have resorted to taking loans from loan sharks just to keep themselves liquid despite lack of revenues.

The foreign tourism sector is expected to receive new foreigners by October 20, with two groups of Chinese tourists arriving in Phuket from Guangzhou, China under the Special Tourist visa.

Source:
ThePhuketNews