VietNamNet Bridge – A big real estate developer has been reportedly hospitalized to treat his mental disease. Thousands of bachelors in Da Nang City now work as blue collar workers at an electronics company. An architect has become a helper at a pho shop. In the economic recession, Vietnamese would take any job they can to earn their living.

The real estate market is gloomy

University degree cannot bring jobs

About 1,000 bachelors have been working at Poster Electronics Company Ltd in Da Nang City as blue collar workers.

Le Duy Luong, Human Resource Director of the company, has confirmed that nearly 1,000 out of the 16,000 workers there have university degrees. Many of them have two university degrees, while many of couples – husbands and wives – have university degrees and both have been working for the company.

However, Luong said the actual number of workers with university degrees is higher than the reported figure. It is because many workers with university degrees feel ashamed about their jobs as blue collar workers, decided to hide their degrees. A lot of workers are believed to finish universities, but only showed their high school degree.

There was also another reason that prompted the bachelors to hide their university degrees: until 2009, the company had refused the candidates with university degrees for fear that they would leave the company for new better jobs.

Since 2010, the company has applied a new recruitment policy, accepting the candidates with university degrees. However, as Luong admitted, it is a big waste of the labor force. All of the recruited workers have received the same training and they now only undertake certain works in the company’s earphone production line.

Architect serves at pho shop

D was once an interior decoration architect for a big construction group in Hanoi. But now he is simply a helper at a pho shop in Hanoi.

In the economic recession, the big group, like many others, also incurred loss and had to lay off workers. D, who graduated from the Hanoi Architecture University, and had good experiences, has become redundant since pre-Tet days.

D decided to cooperate with a friend to set up a small consultancy firm headquartered on Pham Hung road. However, they later had to shut down the firm because of no client.

Becoming unemployed, but D needs to earn money for his life in Hanoi, where he lives in a rent room. Therefore, though feeling ashamed, D still decided to work as a helper at a pho (rice noodle served with meat) shop.

D said he has been living with the modest pay of VND3-4 million a month he receives from the job of helper at the pho shop. “In the current difficult period, no one would spend money to build houses, therefore, interior decoration architects like us have become jobless,” he complained.

Well known real estate developers suffer mental disease

Nguyen Van Dung, a doctor from the Bach Mai Hospital, has confirmed that he has received some special patients.

The common characteristic of the patients is that they were the big guys in the real estate development who have become seriously ill because of the unprofitable business deals due to the sharp fall of the real estate prices.

One of them was very young, aged 32, from Ung Hoa district in Hanoi. The man, who was a well-known real estate trader in Hanoi, could not pay debts because of the frozen real estate market, suffered heavy stressed and then depression. He was hospitalized for treatment and discharged from hospital some days before Tet.

Manh Ha