Vietnamese staff are at a disadvantage compared with foreign counterparts

Vo M Phuong, a senior manager in the retail industry, said Vietnamese senior staff are at a disadvantage compared with foreign counterparts. They receive lower pay and get smaller benefits and fewer promotion opportunities.

Phuong said a Vietnamese sales manager in a South Korean company can receive $2,000 a month, while a South Korean manager would receive no less than $3,000. In general, Indians get 30 percent more pay than Vietnamese who are in the same posts.

“Business owners have to spend 50 percent or 100 percent higher to hire South Koreans compared with Vietnamese. In general, Vietnamese personnel are always underestimated in comparison with personnel from developed countries,” she commented.

Agreeing with Phuong, analysts warned that Vietnamese workers will have to face even stiffer competition when foreign workers flock to Vietnam under multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. 

Le Quang Hung, chai of Sai Gon Garment Production & Trade, predicted that once CPTPP takes effect, Vietnam will see a labor movement among CPTPP member countries. More foreign senior workers will flock to Vietnam.

The workers in the service sector have reasons to worry. TCV, a big investor in hotels and high-end resorts in Mui Ne of Phan Thiet City for the last 20 years, said foreign managers are more efficient in their work.

“We pay the Spanish manager twice as much as the Vietnamese manager. We also have to pay his accommodation, air tickets and business trips. In exchange for the high pay, we have stable sources of guests from Europe,” he said.

Vietnamese managers are good at English and communication, but they lack experience to approach high-income foreign customers, he said.

A representative of Manpower Group said Vietnam has good managers, but the number remains modest. The group has to seek foreigners for e-banking or resort real estate managers.

Nguyen Mai, chair of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIEs), is optimistic about the labor competition. He said 10 years ago, big foreign investors, including Samsung, all hired foreign managers. But three years later, they began replacing foreign staff with Vietnamese. There are many Vietnamese in high positions in foreign-invested enterprises and projects.

Mai believes that most foreign investors hire foreign managers in the first phases of their operation in Vietnam because they cannot find reliable managers. Later, after a period of operation, they better understand the Vietnamese labor market and organize training courses. They then use Vietnamese workers because of lower costs.

RELATED NEWS

What are the right wages for a low-cost labor force?

Labor quality is big problem for Vietnam: reports