Vietnam’s HCI+ 2026 Ranking Signals Stronger Workforce for Investors

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Vietnam was recognized by the World Bank in April 2026 as one of the top-performing economies under the Expanded Human Capital Index (HCI+), and specifically as one of the top-performing countries at a similar income level. For foreign investors, that second distinction carries more weight than the top-five ranking alone.

The HCI+ extends the standard Human Capital Index by asking how effectively a country converts investment in education and health into a productive, employed labor force, and Vietnam’s score signals a workforce that is both improving and being absorbed into higher-value work faster than regional peers.

See also: Vietnam’s Labor Market in 2026: Hiring Hotspots and Talent Shifts

What the HCI+ measures

The HCI+ is the World Bank’s measure of how much human capital a person can expect to accumulate from birth through their working life, given the health, education, and employment conditions in their country. It is scored on a 0–325 scale, where each one-point gain corresponds to roughly one percent higher expected labor income.

Scores are built from three pillars:

• Health (adult survival rates and the share of children not stunted);
• Schooling (learning-adjusted years of education and tertiary enrollment); and
• Work (labor force participation, wage employment, and unemployment).

Unlike earlier measures that stopped at age 18, the HCI+ extends into adulthood to assess whether the skills people build translate into productive jobs.

That last distinction is what makes the 2026 release investor-relevant. A country can have a strong education system and still lose ground if its workforce cannot move into wage employment where on-the-job learning happens, and the HCI+ is designed to pick up exactly that mismatch.

Reading Vietnam’s HCI+ scorecard: Education leads the way

Vietnam scored 216 on the HCI+ in the 2026 release, out of a possible 325. That places it second in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) behind Singapore, at 282, and ahead of three higher-income peers: Brunei at 208, Thailand at 202, and Malaysia at 201.

Schooling pillar

The strongest contributor is schooling. Vietnam’s harmonized learning-adjusted score of 485 is second in ASEAN behind Singapore’s 594, and well ahead of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. That puts Vietnam’s basic education system in a category of its own for a country at its income level.

Expected years of schooling at 11.0 put Vietnam in the middle of the ASEAN range. The clear schooling weakness is at the tertiary level, where enrollment stands at 19.8 percent, well behind Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Work pillar

The Work pillar is Vietnam’s second-strongest. Labor force participation among the working-age population is 87.9 percent, second in ASEAN behind Cambodia and above Singapore’s 85.4 percent.

The gap to Singapore opens in wage employment share, at 52.2 percent for Vietnam against 90.6 percent for Singapore, reflecting the continued share of self-employed and own-account work in the economy.

Health pillar

On health, Vietnam’s adult survival rate of 87.2 percent and share of children not stunted at 80.8 percent sit in the middle of the regional range. Both are respectable for a lower-middle-income economy, though national aggregates mask significant disparities: stunting affects roughly one in three ethnic-minority children, more than twice the rate among the Kinh majority.

How Vietnam stacks up against ASEAN peers

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Vietnam is the only lower-middle-income economy in ASEAN to outscore an upper-middle-income or high-income peer on the HCI+. Its 216 score places it above Brunei, Thailand, and Malaysia, all of which have significantly higher GDP per capita than Vietnam. Among lower-middle-income ASEAN peers, the Philippines trails Vietnam by 41 points; upper-middle-income Indonesia also scores 175.

Where Vietnam outperforms its income peers

The lead is education quality. On harmonized test scores, which capture learning-adjusted achievement, Vietnam ranks second in ASEAN behind Singapore and beats every upper- and lower-middle-income peer in the region. On the Work pillar, Vietnam’s score is also the second-highest in ASEAN, ahead of every upper-middle-income peer.

The utilization story: Vietnam’s quiet advantage

Vietnam’s Work pillar is what separates it from most ASEAN peers. Labor force participation is among the highest in the region, second only to Cambodia in the ASEAN comparison set, and wage employment is rising.

The recognition highlighted Vietnam’s strong performance in linking education, healthcare, and labor-market outcomes. Manufacturing and processing, which accounted for 82.8 percent of disbursed foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2025, support continued expansion of wage employment in higher-productivity sectors. Even so, at a 52.2 percent wage employment share, Vietnam has considerable ground to cover before reaching Malaysia or Singapore.

Vietnam’s labor market and the policy push to 2030

The current labor market in numbers

Vietnam’s labor market in 2025 reflects a workforce that is growing, increasingly trained, and earning more, though the skilled-worker pool remains below one in three.

The skills gap the economy needs to close

The gap that matters for employers is not unemployment but skills composition. Manufacturing continues to shift from low-cost assembly toward electronics, semiconductors, and higher-value services, and disbursed FDI reached US$27.6 billion in 2025, the highest level in five years. Together, these trends are likely to intensify competition for experienced technical and managerial talent. Wage-growth pressure is now concentrated at the skilled end of the market rather than across the workforce as a whole.

The government’s strategic framework

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Two Politburo resolutions set the direction through 2030 and toward 2045:

• Resolution 71-NQ/TW, signed on August 22, 2025, commits at least 20 percent of state budget expenditure to education (with minimums of five percent for investment and three percent for higher education) and targets a workforce in which 24 percent hold a college or university qualification by 2030.
• Resolution 72-NQ/TW, signed on September 9, 2025, reorients healthcare toward prevention and grassroots delivery, with at least 1,000 doctors rotated annually into commune-level stations through 2030.

What this means for foreign investors in Vietnam

Vietnam’s HCI+ 2026 performance provides several practical signals for investors assessing the country against regional peers.

The depth of the talent pool exceeds what income levels alone would suggest. Improvements in wage employment point to a narrowing gap between formal qualifications and actual on-the-job productivity, strengthening workforce reliability across both manufacturing and services.

At the policy level, the trajectory through 2030, anchored by Resolutions 71 and 72, indicates sustained public investment in education, vocational training, and healthcare. This helps reduce long-term human capital risk and lowers the extent to which firms must independently fund workforce development.

At the same time, Vietnam’s advantage lies in the improving quality of its labor force rather than an unlimited supply of high-skilled talent. Investors should therefore continue to plan for targeted in-house upskilling, particularly in technical, managerial, and other higher value-added roles where gaps remain.

For international investors, Vietnam's different localities offer favorable conditions across almost every sector, particularly as the country shifts toward higher value-chain manufacturing, high-tech industries, and innovation. Taking a closer look at Vietnam's provinces and investment destinations before committing capital can provide a decisive competitive advantage. A tailored market study, dedicated location selection, or business matchmaking can uncover factors that are often hard to assess—such as special incentives, skilled labor availability, and tax breaks.

Huyen Do

Manager, Business Intelligence Vietnam

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