Training of Manpower for Woodwork Sector Needs a Comprehensive Strategy

Lack of Workers Although the Prime Minister issued the Decree No. 19 in 2004 to boost further building of schools and vocational training centers, there have not yet had any schemes realized so far.

 

Reasons are attributed to the lack of vocational training schools, plus with the fast growth of the woodworking industry during recent five to six years. The continuous establishment of timber processing plants has increased the demand of laborers in the sector.

 

In addition, because many enterprises are unable to train workers by themselves, they focus on luring skilful laborers from other fields.

 

Also, the invention of new machines requires laborers to be good at using machineries, computers and digital equipment. This means that laborers needs to be trained constantly. However, in fact few enterprises meet the requirement.

 

For that very reason, the demand of human resource has become a “headache” issue of many enterprises in the sector.

 

In front of the situation, the Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation cooperated with the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) to set up a woodworking training and development center in central highlands province of Dak Lak, with an initial investment of VND7.2 billion.

 

Situated at Kilometer 83 in Eahleo District, the center included 200 square meters of class rooms, 1,260 square meters of factories for practical training and is equipped with modern woodworking machines imported from Germany and Italia.

 

A team of foreign experts and domestic lectures, including two doctors, six masters, 12 bachelors and two lecturers from Germany, who are all full of professional knowledge and at least five years of experience in the woodworking industry, attended the teaching. Particularly, some lectures now are working in Truogn THanh Corp.

 

On the schedule, the center will train around 500 candidates per year. Of them, 80 per cent will be laborers working in central and central highlands enterprises, and the remaining of 20 per cent will be employees of Truong Thanh Corp.

 

The center will focus mainly on training laborers for timber processing plants, managers from medium level to high level, the ISO and CoC system and other standards.

In fact, Truong Thanh also faced many difficulties as promoting the training model, for example the expense surplus in building facilities, in training lecturers who is not only good at professional knowledge but also full of pedagogic skills, as well as management expenses emerging from the teaching work.

 

Another challenge arises from sending lecturers abroad for study as some of them separated from the company to do business by themselves after having been well schooled.  

To deal with the real situation, Truong Thanh Corp arranges training courses in the period from May to September to avoid the rush business reason. For some specific cases, the company signed a training contract with candidates in which asking them to continue serving the company for a certain duration after the training.

 

In addition, the company also often opens “Train The Trainer” courses in order to help lecturers improve their pedantic skills and raise the quality of their lessons. Besides, the company also mobilizes more investments from its share holders and the public to possibly upgrade infrastructures and terracing tools.

 

Demand-based Training The woodworking industry is positively developing and one of five key export items of the country. Thus, a team of skillful human resource, plus qualified managers are necessary to each enterprise in the sector.

 

However, the fact showed both factors are still weak and scarce, thus failing to meet the sector’s development. Vietnam is still in a serious lack of vocational training, while enterprises are unable to train workers by themselves.  

Speaking at a recent conference, Nguyen Ton Quyen, vice chairman of the Wood and Forestry Products Association, said that although the Prime Minister has approved the Decree No. 19 to boost the construction of more vocational training schools and centers for the woodworking industry. However, till now, the issue of human resource is still making enterprises embarrassed. 

 

Currently, Binh Duong Province is the country’s biggest center of wood processing for export, but like others across the country, the locality is facing the issue of human resource.

 

The shortage of both skillful workers and qualified managers results in the low productivity and weak production effect, leading to the limitation in competitiveness against regional enterprises.

 

The country’s woodworking industry, therefore, will face difficulty in controlling market shares in the world.

 

According to estimate of woodwork businesses, a Vietnamese worker will produce an average of US$10,000 worth of products per year, while in China, the figure is US$15,000 per year. With such productivity, it is difficult for enterprises to pay a high salary level for their workers.

 

Mr. Quyen warned if Vietnam’s woodworking industry does not urgently settle with the matter, it will be on risk of facing more fierce challenges at right the domestic market by 2010 as the tariff barrier will be removed.

 

At that time, Quyen said, woodworks of foreign enterprises are allowed to enter the Vietnamese market freely and fairly.  

For Binh Duong province alone, experts said that although the woodworking sector’s demand of human resource is very huge, a large number of local laborers are not interested in following the sector.

 

Currently, two schools in the province having department of wood processing are the Southeast Electric Mechanics and Forest Intermediate School and the Binh Duong Fine Art Intermediate School. However,both schools are able to receive from 150-200 candidates for the field.

 

The schools also planed to coordinate with enterprises to hold direct training courses in order to raise professional skills for workers and meet partially the demand of local enterprises. 

 

Tran Dang Bong, headmaster of the Southeast Electric Mechanics and Forest Intermediate School said the training of woodwork laborers needs high expenses for equipment and materials to serve practices, while the financial support from the State is extremely limited

 

Moreover, the connection between the school and woodwork businesses is still weak.

 

Apart form objective reasons, one subjective cause is attributed to that the industry has not yet attracted candidates because low salary level as well as working environment and condition is different in each enterprise.   

To deal with the math of human resource, Vietnam’s woodworking industry need to map out a comprehensive and long-term strategy, with the great contribution of all enterprises, associations and the government.