Public Sector Employment and Provincial Economies in Thailand

This paper is set for three modest objectives: first, to investigate the provincial distribution of government officials using data compiled by Office Civil Services; secondly, perform a causality test between Gross Provincial Product (GPP) and employment, including estimations employment elasticities with respect GPP; third, analyze economies scale in employment. A panel 77 units over 12-year period during 2009-2020 (BE 2552-2563) different categories government, namely, central, judiciary local, excluding temporary employees military officials, were presented this research. The results show that period, government's manpower has slight increase at 0.41 percent annual growth rate. may be explained factors such as: restriction policy, use technology replace manpower, non-essential tasks through outsourcing, or budget constraints. Comparative statistics are performed highlight on:, local high rate 2.84 percent, specifically, up from 185,864 person 2009 252,877 2020. accordance Thailand’s decentralization policy led transfer responsibilities area-based performance. Of note (i) proportion still very small, only 20 total central government; (ii) regional unequal, which Northeastern region lowest relative population; iii) according analysis indicates GPP cause an public not vice versa. Another worth mentioning confirmed,. implies low populated provinces suboptimal viewpoint efficiency