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Fasten your seatbelt and prepare for the worst, because one hell of a storm is coming to Thailand. No, this is not entirely about the ongoing political crisis, although it is very much to blame. It's about something closer to Thais, who have been misled into thinking that picking yellow or red is a matter of life and death. When one million Thais lose their jobs at the same time, Thaksin Shinawatra's asylum controversy will look just like the circus it actually is.

And if you think Labour Minister Uraiwan Thienthong is going to be the saviour, think again. From the look of it, no one in the current government seems to have any idea a major unemployment storm will hit Thailand by 2009, let alone be prepared for it.

According to a survey carried out by the Federation of Thai Industries on key sectors, between 10-15 per cent of workers in these sectors will be out of a job next year. The four surveyed sectors, which employ a total of six million workers, are textiles, electronics, ceramics and furniture.

According to the FTI, orders for 2009 have dropped sharply. The 10-15 per cent figure was not pulled out of a hat, and the manufacturers must prepare themselves for the worst-case scenario. They need to come clean with their employees as to what the real situation is and treat them fairly. In any economic crisis, employers play a big role in whether it will be contained or snowball out of control.

Indeed, as the global financial crisis shifts from real estate to banks and the non-financial "real" economy, everyone is taking a hit. For Thailand, the hit on the real estate sector will translate into hard times for many wage earners and assembly line workers at manufacturing plants.

And the political crisis means we are less equipped than many other countries to cope with large-scale labour trouble. With the government fighting a rearguard action on all fronts, responsibility for the economy has been passed around for years now. And things haven't changed with the Somchai Cabinet, which will be too preoccupied with its own survival. Indeed, the prime minister seems to have put all key issues related to looming unemployment in the wrong hands.

Unless a political miracle does happen, "fire" will surely break out and the whole country will be frantically trying to put it out. There could be some emergency labour rescue programmes here and there, and some populist cheap-food schemes may be introduced. But will these be enough to cope with what will be a big, big storm?

It's sad that the new crisis will prolong the realisation of what is becoming a forgotten ambition. For years, Thailand has wanted to reform its education system, but this agenda has either been mere rhetoric or put on hold because of political battles. The looming employment crisis will once again draw attention to the quality of the country's workforce, but that will only be because of our shameful tendency to focus long term only in times of disaster.

Thailand produces thousands of college graduates annually, but quantity does not in any way reflect the desired quality needed to help the country shift gear to the next level - so it can effectively compete against growing economies like Taiwan and Singapore. And when told that emerging economies like Vietnam will pass us in a few years if we don't get our act together, we retreat back to our false sense of comfort, that somehow things will work out fine.

These questions will come back next year, but only when everyone is scrambling for jobs, compensation, or good spots to park their cars and remaining valuables. And for the one million workers soon to be unemployed, they will be too busy making ends meet to realise why the qualifications of a labour minister should be much more than the fact that she is related to some political bigwig.