ZPXFW Blog

Gaining employment in Thailand as a non-Thai national normally means taking in an English teaching position. Even though there are lucrative English teaching jobs in institutions like Chulalongkorn or Thammasat, the vast majority of such jobs are often poorly paid.

In point of fact, don’t expect a high wage for any highly skilled job, teaching or otherwise. It doesn’t sound very promising, but actually if you want to live in Thailand for an extended period of time, such poorly paid jobs aren’t too much of a problem since the cost of living is very low in Thailand, the infrastructure is perhaps the best in South East Asia, it’s a friendly and safe country, and there’s nonetheless every opportunity to further your career and get some decent work experience.

Yet there is a hidden dilemma that slowly shows itself over time: so you’ve been living in Thailand for a few years, and you’ve accumulated decent work experience, your pay isn’t great, but then again things are cheap in Thailand so no problem. HOWEVER, guess what? You’ve not been able to actually BANK money while working in Thailand. Airfares look incredibly over-priced compared to your salary. The price of things back home gets to frighten you when thinking about your Thai wage slip. This problem hits a lot of foreigners in Thailand a few years after starting work there. Lasting plans are often put on hold because you don’t have the savings to put into action any long-term plan like buying a home, purchasing a car, or getting married.

So, key point : when considering staying in the Land of Smiles, it’s advised to also consider that you will find it extremely difficult to save substantial amounts of hard currency when considering the cost of living of your home country.

Even so, it’s not all about money is it? You can have a great time in Thailand, perhaps learn the Thai language, make friends, go travelling around the country when you have time off work, and acquire some invaluable overseas work experience.

So what sort of work placements can you find in the Land of Smiles? Browsing jobs-quality.com - a site listing job positions around the Chonburi and Bangkok areas of Thailand - they have listed Human Resource job positions, Admin job positions, engineering work placements in Thailand, safety officer work placements etc. Essentially the types of positions you’d find in your home country. Even though the majority of these job posts may be seeking a Thai national who speaks Thai, there are still English-speaking requirements for job posts within many global organizations based in Thailand.