There is fierce competition among banks to attract workers. Vietnam is at the threshold of WTO entry this year. Forecasters said that the demand for worker, especially professional and skilled ones would sharply increase while the current supply is not capable of meeting it.
According to the assessment of the US Navigos Group Human Resource Consulting & Training Company, the demand for workers of Vietnamese enterprises has made a record increase recently.
A report on Vietnam’s human resources issued by Navigos Group in the third quarter of 2005 showed that labour demand increased by 34 per cent over the second quarter. Although labour supply also increased by 42 per cent, it has not yet met the demand of recruiters because most of them are blue-collar workers rather than qualified employees who entrepreneurs need the most.
According to many labour supply companies, professions that have the highest recruitment demand in the past years include: IT, banking-finance, marketing, advertising, administration and applicable technique. Forecasts said those sectors would face serious labour shortages in 2006. Fast economic development means many changes in the labour market. The growth of many new professions requires more and more high-qualified and skilled workers while supply remains unstable.
“Head hunters” such as Price Waterhouse Cooper, the Navigos Group, and NetViet said that currently, there are not many Vietnamese candidates who can meet fully all requirements for management positions of international corporations.
Mr. Duong Xuan Giao, Director General of NetViet said: “With such a fast growth rate, the shortage of human resources with high qualifications and management skills becoming increasingly serious.” Giao predicted: “There may be a struggle among big companies for talent in the coming time”.
A question has been raised as to why the shortage of qualified worker has not decreased despite a large number of students graduating annual? The answer from many recruiters is that students who have graduated are short of many skills so they have not met the actual requirements of enterprises, even postgraduates from domestic universities.
A conference on postgraduate training in Hanoi recently assessed that quality of postgraduate research students is very low. This explains why many domestic postgraduates still can not meet the requirements of foreign companies.
According to labour supply companies, 2006 is a very important year for the Vietnamese labour market. Most of the big companies who have created stable positions in Vietnam will want to nationalise their management systems to reduce costs. It is possible that Vietnam will join the WTO this year and then the labour shortage situation will be more serious. According to specialists in recruitment from Price Waterhouse Cooper, and the Navigos Group, the biggest shortcomings of Vietnamese candidates for senior positions are English fluency and management expertise.
Price Waterhouse Cooper said that currently, foreigner’s salary is 1.5 times higher than Vietnamese in the same position, which also partially shows the contribution of each employee. A recent survey made by Ho Chi Minh City’s Service of Science and Technology revealed a rather high percentage of annual trained employees of foreign-invested companies, at over 26 percent. This shows a fact that foreign enterprises have to retrain recruited candidates to make them meet job requirements.
Banks face labour shortage crisis
Currently, most commercial joint stock banks are always in labour shortage situation. Thousands of students graduating from economic, banking and financial universities annually can not satisfy banks’ recruitment requirements. Neither the number nor quality of graduates meet their expectations. “Schools only teach basic knowledge which is not practical. Therefore, banks have to provide new graduates about six months’ retraining then they are able to take up their work”, said Mr. Ly Xuan Hai, General Director of ACB. He cited: “ACB recruits more 700 employees in 2005 and we have to pay VND3 billion for direct training. These expenses do not include salaries of about 800,000 per head per month paid to them during their training and other expenses. Many banks can not invest in training so they attract other banks’ employees instead, which causes regular changes at many banks.
P.V
Vietnamese
