As the country is preparing for the post-pandemic recovery, NXPO Vice President Dr. Kanchana Wanichkorn shared her thought on Thailand’s future of work.   

NXPO conducted a survey on high-skilled workforce demands in the strategic industries in the next five years (2020-2024). The result revealed more than 170,000 high-skilled jobs will be added in the 12 target industries over the next five years. Amon these high-skilled jobs are data scientist, crop modeling analyst for agricultural sector and digital marketing specialist for wellness and high-income tourism.   

In addition to knowledge and competency, the future workforce should possess skills that will help them adapt to whatever challenges coming along. The World Economic Forum (WEF) identified top 15 skills for 2025 workforce to be: 1) analytical thinking and innovation; 2) active learning and learning strategies; 3) complex problem-solving; 4) critical thinking and analysis; 5) creativity, originality and initiative; 6) leadership and social influence; 7) technology use, monitoring and control; 8) technology design and programming; 9) resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility; 10) reasoning, problem-solving and ideation; 11) emotional intelligence; 12) troubleshooting and user experience; 13) service orientation; 14) systems analysis and evaluation; and 15) persuasion and negotiation. 

The change in job market will not only affect individual workers but also require the transformation of higher education system to ensure that higher education meets the need of the society and economy.