There are 317,000 people unemployment across Thailand in August, amounting to 0.8 percent of the national labour force, according to an October 9 report from the National Statistic Office (NSO).

According to the agency, most of the unemployed were laid off from their jobs, particularly in trade and services sectors, which dismissed more than 104,000 people.

The southern region is said to see the highest unemployment rate, followed by central, northern, Bangkok metropolitan and north-eastern regions.

The report also suggests that university graduates are the majority of people out of work, with about 144,000 people. There are also 49,000 high school graduates, 73,000 secondary school graduates, 39,000 primary school graduates, and 12,000 illiterate and less-than-primary educated individuals looking for employment.

Around 16.22 million Thai work in the agricultural sector, while 22.73 million in other sectors. Many sectors tend to dismiss more employees in 2013 than last year, except the health care and financial sectors.-VNA