Production Structure and Labor Productivity in the Thai Agricultural Sector: An Input-Output Analysis

Abstract

This study uses data from Thailand’s input-output tables for the years 1995, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, with the 2015 table representing the most recent version published by the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council. The objective of this research is to investigate and analyze the production structure, as well as to compute labor productivity indicators across the crop cultivation, livestock, forestry, and fishery sectors. The results show that the production structure in the crop cultivation and forestry sectors exhibits a high proportion of value-added production. Specifically, in 2015, the ratio of intermediate inputs to value-added stood at 30.73%:69.27% for crop cultivation and 19.84%:80.16% for forestry. In contrast, the livestock sector displays a significantly higher proportion of intermediate input utilization (59.38%:40.62%), while the fishery sector shows a more balanced proportion of intermediate inputs to value-added (44.41%:55.59%). Furthermore, the inverse ratio of labor compensation to gross domestic output, used as a labor productivity indicator, indicates that labor productivity in Thailand's agricultural sector declined between 1995 and 2015, with an average annual decrease of 7.07%. This downward trend can be primarily attributed to the aging agricultural workforce, restrictions on expanding production on private land, limitations in employment that hinder productivity growth, and challenges such as the limited capacity for research and development and the slow adoption of technologies aimed at improving production standards and adding value to agricultural products.