ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CRISES IN THAILAND
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Effects on Factory Workers Between the last two quarters of 2008 and most of 2009, factory workers experienced growing underemployment and unemployment. According to the Thai Department of Labor Protection and Social Welfare, more than 100,000 people were laid off between December 2008 and January 2009. Estimates suggest that between September 2008 and March 2009, the underemployment rate rose to 1.9 percent from 1.1 percent during the same period a year earlier, with approximately half a million people working less than 20 hours per week during the third quarter of 2008, although they were willing to work more (World Bank 2009b). Voluntary resignations also increased during this period as fewer working hours and bonus cuts resulted in sharp reductions in income. There were accounts of female and male workers who left their jobs because without overtime, commissions, or bonuses, they could not cover the transport expenses to get to work or the basic costs of living in urban or industrial areas. Those resigning were unable to claim unemployment benefits, adding to the tension between staying in jobs that had stopped being profitable or quitting and having no safety net to fall back on. The workers who stayed in their jobs tried to make up for the reduction in income by finding additional work, which in most cases was short term, irregular, low skilled, and low paid. Findings suggest that female workers were particularly affected by their position in the labor market. Female workers are overwhelmingly represented in sectors that were affected by the crisis, such as export manufacturing and services (Paitoonpong and Akkarakul 2009), and constitute the large majority of unskilled and lower-paid workers, for example, those on assembly lines. Company managers interviewed indicated that without having explicit gender considerations, when forced to cut staff, their main concern was maintaining skilled workers and letting the unskilled go first, which affected women disproportionately.2 Workers also indicated that employers were adopting various strategies to avoid paying severance and unemployment benefits, such as hiring people on probation and firing them just before the end of their probation period, or registering laid-off workers as voluntary resignations, which resulted in smaller compensation. In some companies, the latter practice reportedly affected women more than men. Demand for labor increased rapidly in late 2009 as the economy recovered. Yet, contrary to what would have been expected, few workers were applying for these jobs, and manufacturing firms reported a