Page 11 - IJSA, Vol. 4, No 1, 2021

International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2021
рrint ISSN: 2617-2682; online ISSN: 2707-3637; DOI:10.26697/ijsa

Introduction
When the world is now facing challenges of the COVID- due to the COVID-19 pandemic? The results of this
19 pandemic (Hitt et al., 2021; Melnyk, 2020; Zizek, research would become the data for planning, policy
2020), along with the report from the International formulation, human resource development in the
Labour Organization (2020), it mentioned that prior to government sector in the future to achieve operational
the COVID-19 crisis, there were 178 million young efficiency to be in accordance with current roles and
workers employed around the world. Most of them were missions that aim to meet the needs of people and
informal workers whose employment security was not society.
guaranteed if terminated. Four out of ten workers at this The aim of the study. To explore the motivating factors
age worked in four types of businesses that were mostly influencing the decision for the 4th year students of
affected by the outbreak of COVID-19. Those Chiang Mai University to enter the civil service during
businesses include wholesale-retail businesses, car and the COVID era.
motorcycle repair businesses, factories, real estate and Research hypothesis:
business administration, accommodation and restaurant 1. Personal factors such as gender, domicile, average
businesses. The International Labour Organization academic performance levels, and average monthly
(2020) calls the new generation who have just graduated income of a family differently influence career decision-
and started working during the outbreak of COVID-19, making on civil service jobs.
a “lockdown generation”. According to such situation, 2. Motivation factors such as job characteristics,
Thailand, a country with its economic structure relies on compensation and benefits, career path, job security and
industrial and service sectors and overseas exports values negatively influence the levels of career decision-
depending on foreign countries more than 70% (The making on civil service jobs.
Secretariat of the House of Representatives, 2018), has Expected benefits of this research:
its employment rate gradually slowing down. Along 1. To know what the motivation factors that influence
with the data from the World Bank (2018) analysing the choosing a civil service career of fourth-year students at
crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world economy Chiang Mai University during the COVID-19 pandemic.
will be heavily affected. The Thai economy recorded the 2. To be used as important and useful information for
lowest growth in ASEAN and ranked the second from bureaucracy in planning human resource management
the bottom of the Asia-Pacific region. Besides, the system during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Office of the National Economic and Social 3. To make suggestions and guidelines reflected from
Development Council (2020) released a report on Thai this research for improvement of bureaucratic model of
society in the first quarter of 2020 indicating that the human resource management in the future.
unemployment rate has been increased to 1.03% with
nearly 400,000 unemployed people. It is estimated that Materials and Methods
this year 8.4 million people will be at risk of being laid A population and a sample group
off while 520,000 new graduates entering the labour The total population of 6,167 fourth-year students were
market may be jobless due to the impact of the COVID- used in this research. The sample size was calculated by
19 pandemic. using Yamane’s formula (1973) and the outcome was a
Will civil service jobs be another career choice for a new sample of 362 students in total. The Proportional
generation in Thailand, especially, for those who are Stratified Random Sampling was also conducted based
about to graduate or fourth-year students? Civil service on 20 faculties where the fourth-year students at Chiang
jobs have become more popular as observed from the Mai University are studying. Besides, simple random
larger number of people taking the civil service sampling without replacement was used.
competitive examination today. Thus, this research Data collection
focuses on fourth-year students at Chiang Mai The researcher collected the data in May 2021 using the
University as these students will graduate and will be in questionnaires created which based on related theories,
the time of choosing a career after their graduation documentation, data and research. The researcher used
during the COVID-19 pandemic. They definitely cannot the questionnaires, which already passed the reliability
avoid the impact of this pandemic. In addition, Chiang test to collect data from a sample group. 362 copies of
Mai University is a large educational institute in the that questionnaire were used and then were given score
region and that is why there will be a large number of according to the criteria specified and statistical data was
university graduates entering the labour market in analyzed by using a statistical software.
Thailand, and so this is considered a good case study. Data analysis
Hence, the researcher is interested in studying Once the researcher finished collecting data and
motivation and decision to become a civil servant of checking completeness of the questionnaires, the data
fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University due to the was analysed and processed by using a computer and a
outbreak of COVID-19. statistical software. The statistics being used consist of
This paper will help us to understand a new generation, descriptive statistics, which include percentage, mean,
especially those who are about to graduate. What are the standard deviation, and a test statistic that includes t-test,
factors that they consider in choosing a career and what one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple
their motives are? In addition, how important of these regression set at a significance level of 0.05.
factors and motives are in choosing civil service jobs

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