Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Labour policy regarding foreign workers in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, Pilots organize against foreigners in cockpits. Quoting directly: "The Thai Pilots Association strongly opposes a Government proposal to temporarily ease restrictions on foreign pilots flying with Thai carriers." Quoting further: "Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Thursday that one major obstacle for the tourism sector has been the slow resumption in flights. A post-pandemic personnel shortage has been one of the reasons cited by Airlines worldwide." Well maybe not shutting everybody down and then putting on mandates for something that, by the way now, the 9th circuit Court of the United States no longer calls vaccines. That came out just a little while ago that yeah that's not what they are, because they were experimental and it's a therapy. It's my understanding it is basically a gene therapy. So again you want to know why there has been a slow down? Well it's because of too much Government. That's the problem. Quoting further: "Some Airlines would like the Government to consider allowing foreign pilots to fly Thai aircraft as the job is currently reserved for Thais." Quoting further: "We will discuss this issue with the Ministry of Labour to seek a possible solution including lifting this restriction on a temporary basis." 

Now when you're dealing with anything where you hear Governments say something is "temporary", always, always, always perk up at that. Because an example of "temporary" was when Nixon "temporarily" closed the Gold window back in the 70s, and no longer would redeem dollars for gold. That was "temporary". So again and people sort of I don't know, foreigners have told me to my face sometimes "oh you're a hypocrite because you are okay with them restricting certain aspects of Thai labour but then you're sort of anti-government intervention in other ways." Well it's a little different. I'm kind of okay with Thai protectionism of the Thai labour pool because the Thai labour pool would be overrun with outsiders essentially corroding the earning power of the labour pool if there wasn't some protection provided by the Government. This is actually one of the few times where I think the Government is actually doing kind of what they should be doing. 

Now I don't know what the situation is with aviation and if there really is a serious need for further pilots, but let me get into that further here in a minute. But let me just be clear, yeah for the most part, I am okay with a certain level of Thai protectionism. High quality jobs and training therefore or training for high quality jobs, why should that not be prioritized for the people that live in and are from this country? I don't see why that's a bad thing. Quoting further: "Teerawat  Angkasakulkiat, President of the pilots' group said the Association disagrees with the idea of allowing foreign pilots to work for Thai carriers. Mr Teerawat said Thai student," now this this to me was key, "Thai student pilots face difficulty getting jobs as they don't have the experience to apply for foreign carriers such as airlines in the Middle East that require experienced pilots who have already obtained licenses and sufficient flight hours. The Association found some experienced pilots who were laid off during the pandemic have not returned to the cockpit, as the fleets of some airlines have yet to fully recover." So that kind of begs the question, "What are we even talking about here?" Because some of these people haven't even come back online because the fleets aren't back up, so why would we need to open this up to foreigners to begin with, if we're not even fully saturated? Furthermore, and this was a really good point "Thai student pilots face difficulty getting jobs as they don't have the experience to apply for foreign carriers such as Airlines in the Middle East that require experienced pilots who have already obtained licenses and sufficient flight hours.”

So the point being one of the upshots if you will, one of the benefits if you will of these restrictions against foreigners is it prioritizes Thais and it gives them the ability to gain the training that they need and gain the flight time that they need in order to then be more marketable on the international market. Now look I can understand that there's an element especially from a foreign perspective, "oh maybe that is a little unfair." Well that's kind of part and parcel of nationalism where you take care of your nationals, the people from your country. Now again, as we've seen with the issues associated with not necessarily doing things based on qualification especially in the West when it comes to issues associated with Pilots, that's not so much what we are talking about here, that's never been the issue. We've always been able to find qualified pilots here in Thailand, it's just you have to pick from a pool of Thais. That at the end of the day is what you have to deal with.

So again I don't know what to think of all of this other than to say it doesn't sound like it is particularly needed right now to open this up to foreign competition because again as noted in the article, it doesn't look like that the industry is saturated yet, that we have sort of hit the ceiling of all the Thais that are capable of flying, are not flying yet. It says so in there that these fleets are not fully brought back up to speed after COVID and at the end of the day, we've still got pilots who are qualified who don't have jobs, who still remain laid off. So my thinking would be well let's worry about those folks first, and then once the labour pool is saturated if you will, maybe then worry about opening it up to outsiders.