Improvements in TFP account for a relatively minor portion of the overall growth. However, while TFP growth appears low in the major sectors of agriculture, industry and services, the improvements in TFP at the level of the aggregate economy have averaged between 1.5 and 2 percent, excluding the crisis years of 1997-99. Most of the gains in aggregate TFP are due to resource reallocation among the sectors.
Thailand still has a large number of underemployed workers in agriculture. Thus, strong growth
in industry and services raises overall productivity by pulling workers out of the agricultural
sector where they are still highly redundant. Labor productivity in agriculture is only about one
fifth of the level in the nonagricultural sectors.