A somewhat different perspective is provided by a focus on employment shares in figure
3. Again, the share of employment in industry has roughly doubled since 1977, but it has a far
less dominant role than implied by the output share, only 21 percent of total employment in
2003. There are also substantial employment gains in services, implying a drop in labor
productivity relative to that in industry. Furthermore, agriculture has a far larger role in the
economy when viewed from the employment perspective, but its secular decline is even more
evident.
It is also useful to evaluate Thailand’s progress in terms of the improvement in labor
productivity (GDP per worker) and ultimately living standards as measured by income per
capita, and its convergence to the levels of the high-income countries. Both the productivity and
income measures are reported in international dollars (PPP) in table 2, and they are also shown
relative to the United States to highlight the extent of convergence. As shown below, the gap
between output per worker and income per capita can also be related to underlying differences in
the proportion of income that accrues to residents, the utilization of the workforce, and the age
structure of the population: