Vietnam has redundant labor force and gains certain advantage in terms of workforce. Doctor Trinh Anh Huy-Germany Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam said Vietnamese are assessed as industrious, hard working and thirsty for knowledge, however, they also lack responsibility, limiting their activeness and creativeness. Foreign direct investment enterprises meet this issue in employing Vietnamese labor.
Recently, as Vietnam achieved a remarkable growth rate (average rate of 8 per cent per year), the country is strongly attractive internationally, with good value and a bright future for manufacturers and international investors. Workers from 18-34 years old account for 45 per cent of the workforce, and provide about 1.5 million laborers each year.
Real Situation
In Vietnam, there are about 45 million people of working age. Strong economic growth and increasing numbers of enterprises (about 30,000 enterprises each year) lead to a remarkable decrease in unemployment. According to official statistics, the unemployment rate nationwide is around 5.3 per cent, however, in fact the rate is little higher. 10 per cent of laborers work in stated-owned companies, 80 per cent work in non-stated owned companies, and 2 per cent work in joint venture companies. Agriculture attracts the biggest labor force, followed by services (25 per cent) and industry (17 per cent).
However, the Vietnam labor market is facing a lot of inadequacies. In terms of quantity, although employers have a choice of employees for their staff, the quality does not meet employers’ demand at any time, especially for senior staff, while demand for experienced management experts exceeds supply. Some areas have a serious shortage of human resources for information technology, finance, auditing, law as well as industry. In addition numerous employees are not good enough at foreign languages to take jobs. In recent years, quite a lot of foreign investors have invested in Vietnam, and overseas Vietnamese returning to the fatherland result in improving Vietnamese knowledge of foreign languages.
Development Orientation
Vietnam is considered a place with low cost and improving quality. However, Vietnam is in shortage of experts and skilled workers. The number of trained workers stands at 27 per cent, therefore employers should keep in mind that when beginning work, employees will be like a fish out of water, unprepared for their job. A training system implemented in Germany doesn’t appear in Vietnam. We should match the trained labor force rate with international standards to improve the capacity of Vietnamese laborers.
Vietnamese enterprises should pay attention of not only to training and associating talented young laborers, but also keeping them when they become skillful. On the one hand this job requires enterprises to have capital, outlook and management ability; on the other hand, training quality should be improved to meet the demand in the reality. This is also a great opportunity for education. In global competition only the nation with high quality labor can have the chance to develop.
In addition, we should improve labor market legal framework and ensure strict and full compliance with regulations on the relationship between employers and employees.
Vietnamese
