Businesses More Concerned about Human Resources Quality

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the number of fresh graduates in 2014-2015 is more than 425,000. These fresh graduates will act as young workforce to supplement the recruitment market in Vietnam. Especially when the economy has good signs of growth, with 65 percent of firms reporting high recruitment demand in the second half of 2015, the quality of young labour supply is attracting most attention now.

 

Looking toward recruitment needs, the third quarter of 2015 witnessed positive signs of the economy with more FDI projects invested. Up to now, the country has had 17,499 projects in total 448,148 FDI enterprises operating in Vietnam. It is expected to bring growth in the demand for work. The survey of JobStreet.com also showed that 65 percent of enterprises have high recruitment demand in the second half of 2015, especially in three areas of Sales, Information Technology and Engineering.

 

For other countries in the region such as Malaysia and Singapore, the top issue for employers when recruiting fresh graduates is the salary. However, in Vietnam, enterprises place skills of this group to the forefront when only 14 percent of companies interested in wage costs, but up to 84 percent on human resources quality expectations. However, surveys of enterprises show that the fresh graduates in Vietnam are not only inexperienced but also take time to learn the skills. This is the reason why businesses still tend to recruit candidates with experience.

 

In the trend of extensive links with the economic community in the region and the world, the Vietnamese workforce remains at the bottom of the rankings in terms of labour capacity, especially English ability. Ms Angie Phang, Director of JobStreet.com Vietnam, said Vietnamese workforce still stands last in the ranking of labour capacity, especially when English skills is considered the top skills needed in integration period.

 

JobStreet.com figures show that Vietnam ranks of 4/5 in English compared to the region. Survey for entry workers shows that only 5 percent are confident about their ability in English, while 27 percent admit weaknesses in English language. This became the main weakness, making Vietnamese workforce lose competitive advantage in the international arena, and particularly when the employer agrees to spend a higher salary from 11-20 percent for the qualified candidates with fluent English.

 

Besides language skills, inexperience is currently the biggest challenges of HR Vietnam especially for new graduate employees, of whom 50 percent enter the workforce not in their specialized work. Inability to find a suitable job is a big issue, as 17 percent of candidates do not work in their specialised areas and 45 percent just do a temporary job until they find the right jobs fit their major.

 

Another factor employers consider when hiring Vietnamese candidates is loyalty; most new employees tend to change jobs after a while. JobStreet.com survey indicates that only 26-29 percent of employees display loyalty to their first job. Particularly in Singapore, this percent is much lower, reaching only 12 percent.

 

When asked why they do not want to recruit new graduates, 67 percent of Vietnamese businesses mentioned skills, while 33 percent worried about the high rate of job hopping. JobStreet's survey also showed that 54 percent of entry workforce believe that they would not encounter problems even working outside of their major, while 46 percent acknowledge they will face difficulties and time-consuming acquisition of new skills and knowledge not in their major. This shows that improving the quality of human resources in the period of integration is not just a matter of education but also the major problems of the labour market. And one of the biggest challenges for the market is to provide suitable employment, specialisation and competence of the workforce.