Bangkok - Thailand might see 1.1 million workers lose their jobs by the middle of next year as the global economic downturn bites into the country's exports, media reports said Tuesday.

Export orders were expected to drop more than 20 per cent by the second quarter of 2009, forcing industries to lay off workers to survive, the Federation of Thai Industries said.

"If the prediction is correct, the number of unemployed workers would account for 12.4 per cent of the 9 million work force in the industrial sector," the federation's deputy secretary general Sommat Khunset told The Nation newspaper.

Sommat predicted that export industries likely to be hardest-hit next year included electronics, electrical appliances, automotive and ceramics, which are among Thailand's leading exporters.

While Thailand enjoyed robust exports during the first nine months of 2008, shipments started to slow in October when the financial crisis took off in the United States and Europe. In October, Thailand's exports reached 15.3 billion dollars, up 5.2 per cent from the same month a year earlier. It was the slowest growth rate reported since July 2002.

Exports of electronic products and electrical appliances, two of the country's top export items, dropped last month by 4.2 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively, according to figures released by the Commerce Ministry.

Given a good performance in the first 10 months of the year when Thailand's exports grew 21.7 per cent to reach 151.2 billion dollars, the kingdom was still expected to reach its target of 15- to 20-per-cent growth this year, but growth would slow to 5 per cent in 2009, the ministry forecast. (dpa)