Closely Linking Trainers with Employers

Human resources have basically met socioeconomic development needs and the recruitment demands of local enterprises. Vietnam Business Forum Magazine has an interview with Mr. Le Van Luong, Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Yen Bai province, on this issue. Manh Dung reports.

How do you assess the current local human resources?

In the 2016-2018 period, Yen Bai province-based tertiary schools enrolled 50,407 students, including 4,045 college students, 7,376 intermediate students and 38,986 low-level vocational students. In this period, 15,380 rural workers were supported with vocational training according to the Project 1956).

By the end of 2018, trained workers accounted for 54% of the workforce, including 27.8% of certified 3-month trained workers. Farm workers made up 64.8% of the workforce. In 2018, enrollments by vocational schools exceeded the plan.

The labor training index, one of 10 component indices of the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), increased over the years. It scored 6.22 points, ranked 40th out of 63 provinces and cities, in 2017, and climbed to 6.6 points, ranked 18th in 2018. The improved labor training index lifted up the overall PCI rankings of Yen Bai province by four grades to the 42nd position in 2018 (compared to 2017, ranked 46th). This showed that businesses were quite satisfied with personnel quality.

Human resources have basically met socioeconomic development needs and recruitment demands of enterprises in Yen Bai province. In agricultural and rural areas, trained workers significantly contribute to raising productivity and product quality; developing concentrated farming areas such as orange, rice, bamboo, bamboo shoots, and silkworm; and accelerating the shift from farm labor structure to non-farm labor. Laborer training has provided career opportunities for thousands of local workers each year, particularly employed by South Korean-invested garment producers, tourism and service companies. This has facilitated production and business operation expansions and increase the labor size in existing businesses.

The open and lean mechanism is a strong magnet to investors to Yen Bai province. Do you have any human resources training policies to meet employment requirements of investors? What is the vocational training strategy in the next stages?

We’ve advised the Provincial People’s Committee to execute policies on local human resource training, including State budget funded for Yen Bai Vocational College in a bid to make it a high-quality school by 2020 (as per the Prime Minister's decision). The college will meet training requirements of key occupations at international level (two occupations), at ASEAN level (three occupations) and at national level (one occupation). The sector will invest in public colleges and vocational schools to meet national key requirements (11 occupations) approved by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to meet high-quality human resource requirements for local socioeconomic development, especially enterprises’ demands for high-quality human resources.

In 2011-2020, the province has executed vocational training policies for rural workers under the Prime Minister’s Decision 1956 to train and supply rural human resources to meet scientific and technological transfer requirements, improve productivity and product quality, and supply trained workers for enterprises.

In 2018, Yen Bai province approved a scheme on shift of farm labor to nonfarm labor in 2020, with a vision to 2025. Accordingly, in the coming years, the provincial budget is expected to allocate VND10 billion annually to support enterprises to train and recruit employees, focusing for large-scale enterprises, industrial processors, tourism companies and service firms. In 2019, the sector will advise the provincial government to execute labor training support policies to work for local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under Circular 32/2018/TT-BLDTBXH dated December 26, 2018 by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Thank you very much!