Thailand's Expat Exodus
Budget cuts, mass retrenchment, and downsizing have become the buzz words in 2009 as the media reports a seemingly unending stream of doom and gloom. Regional expatriate havens such as Singapore and Hong Kong are likely to be hit hard but with foreign executives being first to go, but how does Thailand compare? Greg Lowe writes.
Large numbers of expatriate executives will leave Thailand and Southeast Asia this year, as the global recession forces a wave of salary cuts and relocations and businesses scrabble to cope with the increasingly dire economic outlook, experts say.
Financial centres such as Singapore and Hong Kong will be hardest hit. Thailand is already seeing net outflows of expat executives according to relocation services, while Vietnam has the brightest outlook in terms of salary increases according to recent research.
