Skilled Labor Shortage Plaguing Businesses in Vietnam

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Oct. 23 – According to a human resources expert, businesses in Vietnam are having a hard time recruiting and retaining skilled workers because of a shortage of qualified labor in the market.

Frederic Laurencon, a human resources expert from a French financial consultancy company AG2R, spoke during a seminar on human resources policies in Hanoi.

He said that 94 percent of businesses in the country are making recruitment of skilled workers their top priority although the turnover rate remains high.

The shortage of skilled workers is due to a lack of local training centers, which also lagging when it comes to improving their programs.

The director of the Business Development Institute, Pham Thi Thu Hang, told Vietnam News Agency that the skilled labor shortage is a factor hindering the disbursement of foreign investment, which is flowing in at a record rate recently.

For the country’s workforce to remain competitive, the rate of trained labor in the workforce must increase from 30 percent to 50 percent. Vocational training should also meet international standards in the next 3 to 5 years.

The Ministry of Finance predicts that the country will need 13,500 skilled workers in the monetary and financial sector and 80,000 skilled IT engineers by 2010.

Hang suggested that businesses should work with universities and training centers to secure the labor supply and upgrade staff qualifications.