About 50,000 laid off in four months

Citing the employment termination watch committee's report about the situation from January 1 to May 1, Somchai Chumrat said conditions were particularly hard in densely industrial provinces such as Samut Prakan that had seen 14,123 workers lose their jobs; Ayutthaya, 12,051; Pathum Thani, 10,829; and Bangkok, 9,009 laid off workers.

Electronic parts manufacturing closed the most factories - 110; followed by textiles, fashion accessories and shoes - 114; autoparts - 81; machine manufacturing - 48; and furniture - 81.

Reasons for lay-offs were mostly a loss of profits, a lack of liquidity, low orders, a contract/concession cancellation, organisational downsizing, and moving of a manufacturing base, he said.

Somchai said there were also 422 factories - employing 180,058 workers - on the verge of folding. The telling signs of distress included temporary closure, partial payments to workers, working hours cut, and material shortage.

Most of these at-risk factories were in the fields of electronic parts manufacturing, autoparts, machine making, furniture making and metal manufacturing, he said.