Productivity of Thai Old Aged Labors

Abstract

This paper presents the study of the age-productivity profiles of Thai labor. The study uses the data from the business survey in the Manufacturing sector and the Trade and Services sector mathched with the Labor Force Survey by National Statistical Office (NSO) to estimate the labor productivity equation of matched employer-employee data model. The estimated results from the model show that the age-effect on the labor-productivity in each economic sector is different. The productivity of old aged labor at age 55-59 in the Manufacturing sector significantly decreases to be lower than the productivity level of the young labor. However, the productivity of old aged labor in the Wholesale-Retail Trade and Hotel-Restuarant sector could remain at the high level, and reach the peak, then considerably decreases to be lower than the productivity of young labor at the age of 60-64. For the Trade and Services sector, the productivity of old aged labor could significantly reach the highest level at the age of 50-54. The estimated result does not show that the elderly labor working in this sector has less productivity compared to the young. Hence, to enable the workers to work longer, the government should take into consideration the importance of different age-effect on labor productivity in each sector.