This is one of core contents of the Annual Report: Vietnam Business 2007 to be published by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI). It covers labour and human resources development. VCCI expects to publish the book in the middle of May. Dr Pham Thi Thu Hang, Director of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion Centre of VCCI, the chief author of the book, said the first “Annual Report: Vietnam Business 2006” themed “WTO integration”, published in 2007, resounded strongly in the business community. This year, VCCI themed the book “Labour and Human Resources Development” because Vietnam is more deeply integrating into the world and FDI capital is being increasingly injected into Vietnam. The human resource development will affect the absorption of FDI capital.
Arguably, the human resource issue is a headache for most enterprises. Why did you choose only six industries this year?
Unlike last year, we had comprehensive and systematic valuations. The year 2006 was the first year we wrote the book, thus, we encountered certain shortcomings. In this year’s report, we systemised the development trend of all Vietnamese enterprises since 2000 to date. Notably, we focused on six key industries of the national economy: food processing, garment and textile, insurance, tourism, construction, and banking. We selected these six industries because they have the most influence on labour and human resources. We cannot valuate all industries in a report; therefore, we will pick up industries in accordance with the theme of the publication. We have five criteria for the selection: total workforce, year-on-year labour growth, sector-to-sector labour growth, productivity and added value generation.
One year after joining the WTO, how are the human resources of Vietnamese enterprises, especially small and medium ones?
In general, in SMEs, labour seriously affects the business efficiency because they do not have limited highly skilled and experienced employees. This is clearly shown in industry comparisons. For instance, the total workforce of the insurance industry increases but the workforce in SMEs decreases. In our analyses, we clearly classify development matters of both big and small enterprises, in which labour and human resource development are highlighted. This also helps us understand the impact of integration on human resources in Vietnamese enterprises.
Through surveys and interviews with specialists of the six mentioned industries, we find that the labour and human resource is now a burning issue of all enterprises. For instance, garment and textile firms are under heavy pressure because of low added value and insufficient executives. The construction industry lacks design consultants, the banking and insurance industries lack senior officials, the tourism industry lacks trained tour guides.
- Do you have any opinion about the labour demand between the FDI and domestic sectors?
At present, FDI enterprises encounter difficulties in recruiting labourers because of low labour mobility. FDI enterprises find it hard to recruit capable employees for their projects. Alarmingly, many labourers, especially skilled ones, quit jobs in FDI enterprises in the Mekong Delta region, while the supplementary force is very limited in this region.
The question is whether Vietnam's ability to absorb FDI capital can meet the surge in pledged FDI capital. From our report, capital absorbing ability may be a problem in Vietnam and key economic zones in particular.
- Apart from reporting, does the book give recommendations and solutions for specific industries?
Our book puts forth several recommendations on human resources for enterprises. However, the use and application of the recommendations require initiative and creativity of enterprises. For example, we suggest that the banking industry should do two things at the same time: modernisation of the banking system and preparation of human resources to operate modern technology, equipment and services.
We recommend the insurance industry build up a senior lecturing workforce, employ domestic and international experts, focus on long-term human resource development and expand insurance training units.
In short, this may be considered a “white book” on the human resource situation in Vietnam.
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