The Labour Attributes of Demand in the ASEAN Economic Community

Abstract

This article examines the relative importance of attributes that will directly affect labour markets and employment earnings after Thailand participates in the ASEAN Economic Community agreement in 2016. This research paper considers two types of company: (1) companies under ASEAN free movement of labour and (2) companies not under ASEAN free movement of labour in 2016. The conjoint analysis is utilised with an additive model of five variables to generate a parsimonious orthogonal array of 12 profiles. The five variables are presented in full profile form withall possible combinations, which resulted in 12 rank ordered combinations. Two hundred and seventeen individual recruiters participated in this study. Overall, this study finds that the most important attributes for employees in both types of company are ASEAN nationality and having a higher degree of education. Speaking an ASEAN language is found to be crucial for companies under ASEAN free movement of labour, while speaking English is revealed to be critical for companies not under ASEAN free movement of labour. Finally, attributes of workplace and identity skill are not significantly important for both types of company.