Foreign Firms in Vietnam Thirsty for Blue-collar Workers

Most foreign-invested companies in the central, northern and southern regions of Vietnam are in serious shortage of manual workers, hampering their economic development, a local newspaper reported.

 

According to a survey conducted by the Institute for Labor and social Sciences under the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), at least a quarter of foreign-invested companies in Vietnam are in dire need of manual laborers.

 

Those companies need, on average, more 27 per cent employees and 70 per cent more manual workers, the survey showed.

 

Although an average of 983,000 trained laborers were added to the national workforce each year during the 2001-2005 period, this still falls short for what is needed, particularly in urban areas and key economic zones.

 

Nguyen Lan Huong, deputy Head of the Institute said that most companies, particularly those in the central and southern regions, wanted young manual laborers to train in-home.

 

Foreign businesses in Ho Chi Minh City, she added, are acutely in shortage of blue-collar workers, as they are in 76 per cent short. Meanwhile, in Danang and southern province of Dong Nai, the picture is the same, with a 50 per cent and 74.7 per cent need, respectively, Huong said.

 

With more laborers inclined to quit their jobs to seek work elsewhere, foreign-invested companies often operated with a workforce 30 per cent-40 per cent below what was necessary, she added.

 

MoLISA estimates that there has been a 2.5 per cent in increase year-on-year of laborers, or more than one million people since 2001, with urban areas up 2.5 times compared with rural areas. However, up to 49.3 per cent of the Vietnamese labor force has only a primary school education, Deputy Labor Minister Le Duy Dong said, adding that the rise in quantity is not synonymous with an increase in quality,"

 

Foreign-invested companies have made considerable contributions to the economic development of the country. They presently contribute 16 per cent of Vietnam's GDP, 50 per cent of export turnover, and 18 per cent of the whole society 's total investment. Therefore, to lure more foreign-invested enterprises, Vietnam needs to soon map out measures to deal with the situation.