Introduction
The upcoming ASEAN Economic Community : AEC in 2015 has made the member nations in this region more interesting, with more role and more negotiation power on the world economic arena. AEC is more than a beginning of free trade and mutual agreement on reduced tariffs; actually, it is a gateway to lead ASEAN to Single Market and Production Base. This also covers mutual agreements on free trade, investment services, and workforce mobility in 5 elds, i.e. products, services, investments, workforce, and funds, as well as the standardization of all relevant criteria. Of course, this has an effect on businesses and there will probably be a shortage of workforce in different professions due to Mutual Recognition Agreement : MRA on the following 7 elds of occupations: engineering, nursing, architecture, exploration, medicine, dentistry, and accounting. (Department of Trade Negotiations, 2012) The workforce in any countries that meets the quali cation criteria, as mutually agreed, on education, training, and work experiences will be accepted among all members and can work in whatever ASEAN countries they want.
Moreover, the free workforce mobility may affect the labor market of accountants in Thailand. As the demand of labor market of accountants is increasing, the demand and supply in this workforce are not proportional at all. The educational institutes still cannot produce enough accountants, whether undergraduate or diploma programs, to satisfy the need of the overall market, although Ministry of University Affairs, which is responsible for the control of workforce production, used to set up a 15- year plan to deal with this problem. The said plan was based on the idea that the production of graduates for the labor market could not be done within a few years; instead, it took at least 4-5 years to do that. However, there is still no balance between the workforce and the demand of labor market (Phoompanich, 1999).
Therefore, it is impossible to produce any workforce within a short period of time. To prepare for the policy of free workforce mobility in 2015, there should be a plan to develop and produce the domestic workforce and meanwhile increase its potential in order to compete with the others.