More than eight years have passed since Her Majesty the Queen lamented the effects of the brain drain caused by the mandatory retirement of civil servants at the age of 60. The Civil Service Commission agreed with her suggestions and in 2008 a legal amendment to the Civil Service Act was approved to allow a select number of senior civil servants in the legal and medical fields to continue working until they reached 70.
Those qualifying were mostly judges, and the regular exodus from the civil service continued each September as 60-year-old retirees filed out the door.
It is now clear that this change in the law did not go far enough and that the country is wasting productive human resources.
Specifically, it failed to take into account declining birth rates which will gradually shrink the pool of eligible young candidates, the greying population and the country’s long-term needs in providing a growing number of public services. Nor did it take account the fact that the mandatory retirement age of 60 was set in 1941 when the average life expectancy of a Thai citizen was 52. Now it is 74 due to better health care, but retirement for most government workers and many in the private sector continues to be at 60.
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