Trends in the HR Development of Japanese Enterprises in Thailand in the 21st Century

Abstract

The emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) as well as scientific and technological innovation are advancing very rapidly and are changing the world. These changes are also changing the types of skills needed in the labor market. Japan has been playing a leading role in the development of the economies in Southeast Asia for many decades, and Japan enterprises are continuously persuaded invest in Thailand. However, one of the problems of Thailand is a lack of qualified manpower that can serve the demands of the labor market, and educational institutions need to reform themselves in order to improve the quality their graduates in this regard. This paper suggests that curricula should be redesigned in line with the current demand of the market. The paper is organized as follows. In section 1, we briefly give an overview of Japanese investment in Thailand; in section 2 we discuss the problems of the personnel in Thailand that speak Japanese; in section 3 we explore the trends of manpower resources in Japanese enterprises. In section 4 we summarize the findings and propose a new educational program for foreign investment in Thailand, in order to ascertain the needs of the labor market.