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How to hire remote employees in
Laws about hiring are complicated, and the same is true in Thailand. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Thailand, you have two real options when it comes to hiring. We’ll detail both below.
If you want to successfully hire in
Thailand
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Thailand
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Thailand
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Thailand
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Thailand
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Thailand
, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Thailand than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Thailand.
An employee who has worked continuously for one full year is entitled to an annual holiday of 6 days per year. If the employee works for less than one year, his or her annual leave is prorated. Sometimes, employers voluntarily give more than 6 days of annual leave to employees. If employees do not use their annual leave holiday within a year, it is carried over to the next year and added to the next year’s annual leave. Yet some employers refuse to carry unused annual leave to the next year, annulling it when the year to which it belongs ends.
16 public holidays.
Employees are eligible to take up to 30 days of paid sick leave per year. If the employee is absent for more than 3 consecutive days, the employer can ask for a doctor’s note verifying the illness.
Employed expectant mothers are granted a minimum of 98 days of maternity leave. 45 days out of these 98 days are paid. Whether the remaining days are paid for or not depends on the employer’s agreement with the pregnant employee.
The rights enjoyed by fathers of newborn babies vary depending on the sector in which they work. Fathers working in the private sector receive no paternity leave. The public sector, by contrast, gives fathers 15 days of paternity leave to take care of their newborn babies.
No statutory regulation.
Work-related injury leave: If the employee needs to receive medical treatment due to work-related injury or occupational disease, his or her work-related injury leave should not exceed more than 12 months. In case of serious injury or special circumstances, the work-related injury leave may be appropriately extended upon the confirmation by the municipal labor ability certifying committee.
The extension shall not exceed 12 months. Injured employees are paid 100% of their daily wages while they receive the required medical treatment. Employers bear the full brunt of payments for employees’ injury compensation.
When employers want to discharge the employee, they are required to give them one month’s notice in advance of termination. Yet in those cases when employees are discharged for a reason connected with their behavior or performance, employers are not expected to warn them in advance. Among these reasons are the following:
When employees are discharged for misbehavior, they are not paid severance money either.
If employers suspend their business temporarily for a cause other than a force majeure, they pay to the employee 50 percent of the daily wage he or she received before the suspension of the business. The payment is given to the employee for the whole period his or her services are not required.
The employee or employer can terminate by giving notice at or before any time of payment to take effect at the following time of payment. 30 days advanced notice is common, and some ask for a longer 2 or 3-month notice period. As a rule, the duration of the notice period is stipulated in the employment contract.
If employees are not dismissed for the reasons mentioned in the section above, they are paid severance according to the following scheme:
Period of Employment
Amount of Severance Pay
More than 120 days but less than 1 year - 30 days salary
At least 1 year but less than 3 years - 90 days salary
At least 3 years but less than 6 years - 180 days salary
At least 6 years but less than 10 years - 240 days salary
10 years but less than 20 years - 300 days salary
20 years or more - 400 days salary
Employees working for less than 120 days for the same employer are not eligible to receive the severance payment. Other employees who do not qualify for severance payment are those who are hired for a fixed duration. As specified in the Labour Protection Act, these employees must have a written contract of no more than 2 years duration. To receive such a contract, employees usually do a special project, not in the normal course of the employer’s business. Or it must be temporary or seasonal employment.
When the employer announces termination and requires employees to work until the end of the following month, employees can find other employment and resign before the specified date. If this is the case, employers do not pay severance pay to the resigned employee.
Not required, however, Thai law does specify severance pay for employees who have worked for 120 days or more and are terminated without cause. As a result, to avoid paying severance, many employers in Thailand set probation periods of up to 119 days.
The maximum number of work hours is 8 per day, with a total of 48 hours weekly. Employees performing hazardous tasks work 7 hours per day and 42 hours weekly.
A 1-hour rest period during a working day is given to employees. They can break their rest period into parts, the minimum time being 20 minutes and the longest time being an hour. If the employee is engaged in such work where stoppages may damage its production or quality, the employer may request the former to work without breaks. The employee’s consent is required in this case.
An employee must consent to overtime and cannot exceed 36 weekly. Employees working overtime are entitled to overtime pay. Overtime pay is 150% their normal rate or 200% the rate for work on holidays.
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