Bangkok, Aug 28 (IANS): Thailand's employment growth slowed in the second quarter of this year as droughts affected farming despite improvements in the vital tourism sector with an inflow of foreign visitors, official data showed on Monday.

The Southeast Asian country's labour force amounted to 39.7 million individuals in the April-June period, representing a 1.7-per cent year-on-year increase, a slowdown from an expansion of 2.4 per cent in the previous three months, according to the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC).

The growth was mainly due to an expansion of the non-agricultural sector, with employment in hotels and restaurants jumping 11.7 per cent from a year earlier, attributed to the recovery of the domestic economy and inbound tourists, Xinhua news agency quoted the NESDC report as saying.

However, employment in the agricultural sector saw a dip of 0.2 per cent year on year to 11.6 million jobs, partly due to the impact of drought, which was linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon, the report said.

The agency noted that as current cumulative amounts of rain across all regions remained below normal levels, the growing impact of drought on agricultural employment and income adversely affected farming activities.

The country's unemployment rate was registered at 1.06 percent in the second quarter, edging up from 1.05 per cent in the January-March period, according to the NESDC.