Biofuels and employment effects: Implications for socio-economic development in Thailand

The study assesses the impacts of the biofuels production to the socio-economic development in Thailand. The four kinds of biofuels considered in the analyses are ethanol from cassava, molasses and sugarcane ethanol as well as palm biodiesel. The key elements of socio-economic development including employment generation, economic effects on GDP and trade balance are investigated based on a combination of process and input–output analysis. The results show that producing ethanol and biodiesel require about 17–20 and 10 times more workers than gasoline and diesel as per energy content, respectively. Direct employment in agriculture contributes to more than 90% of total employment. Nevertheless, there are the significant differences in the characteristics of employment in the agriculture and biofuel processing sectors. The overall impacts of ethanol production in Thailand in year 2022 are the employment generation of around 238,700–382,400 person-years, 150 M$ additional GDP, imported goods worth 1583 M$ but 2547 M$ of imports would be saved if compared to petroleum fuels. The other socio-economic aspects such as agricultural improvement and rural development due to biofuels policy in Thailand and some policy measures that need to be urgently promoted are also discussed in the study.