BANGKOK: Thailand’s employment dropped 0.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier due to lower farm jobs, after a 1.7% year-on-year increase in the previous quarter, the state planning agency said on Monday.

Agricultural employment dropped by more than 5.7% in the first quarter year-on-year during the off-season, while non-farm jobs grew 2.2% driven by tourism, the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) said in a statement.

Jobs in the hotel and restaurant sector rose 10.6% year-on-year in the March quarter, driven by more than 9.3 million foreign tourist arrivals, the agency said.

The jobless rate rose to 1.01% in the January-March period from 0.81% in the final quarter of 2023, the agency said.

Thailand’s definition of unemployment is narrow, however, and only counts as jobless those who do not work a single hour in a surveyed week.

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Analysts say the figures do not catch Thailand’s significant unofficial economy.

In the January-March period, Thailand had a total workforce of 40.2 million, down from 40.7 million in the prior three months, the agency said.