VietNamNet Bridge – The quality of jobs available for young people aged between 15 and 29 is raising the alarm in the youth labour market in Vietnam, according to the first national school-to-work transition survey released on the occasion of International Youth Day (12 August).

The preliminary findings of the nationwide survey, carried out by the General Statistics Office and the International Labour Organization (ILO) in early 2013, indicates that the impact that low-productive employment among the large youth population has on the growth prospects of the country is a primary concern.

They show that poor quality employment impacts more than half of young workers. Nearly eight in ten are in informal employment and half of them are in irregular employment, meaning own-account work or temporary contracts.

Accordingly, three in every ten 15-to-29-year-olds is overeducated for their job, making them likely to earn less than they otherwise could have and fail to use the most of their productive potential.

The largest share of the youth population in Viet Nam (59 percent) has completed their labour market transition to a stable or satisfactory temporary job or self-employment, with males outnumbering females.  About 23 percent of the youngsters have not yet started the transition, mainly because they are still at school while the rest remains “in transition”.

Nearly half of those who have completed their labour market transition moved directly from schooling to their current stable or satisfactory job, while the remainder had to experience non-satisfactory temporary employment or work as unpaid family workers before being able to find a better job. The transition path for the latter proved to be extremely long at 58.5 months, or nearly five years.

For the young people who remain “in transition”, they are likely to find themselves staying within the category for another long period of time. The findings show that the youth remaining in transition have already spent on average six years struggling to find a stable or satisfactory job.

 ILO Viet Nam Country Director Gyorgy Sziraczki said young people in Vietnam need support to make their labour market transition smoother, which will help the whole country “unleash their full potentials”.

The link between education and training and export growth, economic diversification and the creation of more and better jobs should be strengthened while another set of policies, such as career guidance, job counseling, labour market information and employment services could ease the transition from school to work.

The preliminary findings of the survey show that the most popular job search method for the young people is now through “asking friends, relatives and acquaintances”.

“Unless Vietnam takes advantage of its huge young labour force that will soon pass their prime, it will have to pay long-term costs,” said Sziraczki.

The Vietnam school-to-work transition survey will be released this autumn. It was developed to characterize the specific youth employment challenges and to support policy-makers in designing adequate instruments to help the transition of young people into employment.

In Vietnam, which is one of the 28 target countries doing the similar poll, the survey will also have a second round planned for 2014.

The survey was introduced as part of the global Work4Youth partnership between the ILO Youth Employment Programme and The MasterCard Foundation. The US$14.6 million project, which will run for five years to mid-2016, aims to strengthen the production of labour market information specific to young people and to work with policy-makers on the interpretation of data.

Source: VOV/ILO VN