COMPETENCY OF LOGISTICS MANPOWER DEMAND IN EASTERN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR (EEC)

Abstract

This research studies entrepreneur’s expectation regarding the competency of labor in the logistics sector of the 10 targeted S-Curve industries in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), towards three education groups; diploma to PhD degree, secondary school to high vocational certificate, and primary school. A questionnaire was conducted by gathering data and making comparison between the entrepreneur’s expectation and the competency levels - knowledge, skills and characteristics - of labor in present day. Questionnaire survey that covered 300 entrepreneurs were conducted referred from the list of companies database of The Board of Investment of Thailand (BOI) in 2019, ranging from air freight service provider, logistics, express shipping service to automotive and auto parts supplier. Through statistical analysis, the comparison outcome reflects the gap between the labor competency and entrepreneur’s expectation. Moreover, this study also includes the in-depth interviews of 5 entrepreneurs, aiming to find their expectations towards the improvement of labor competency. 

The findings of the study have shown that the logistics labor competency scores are lower than the entrepreneur’s expectation in all aspects. Particularly, the secondary school to vocational certificate group has the lowest competency score as comparing to the expectation, followed by the diploma to Ph.D. group, and the primary group respectively. Besides, the desired characteristics of the logistic labor such as honesty, responsibility, discipline and punctuality are the most expected competency from all education groups, since these characteristics are the fundamental of success in work and personal life.