Under the plan, in 2018-2020, Vietnam would export 18,000 workers, while in 2021-2025, the remaining workers will be sent to Japan, South Korea and Germany.

The total cost for the plan is VND1.3 trillion.

Nguyen Khac Giang from VEPR said the plan is ‘too ambitious’. MOLISA plans to send 10,000 workers to Germany in the next three years, while Vietnam still doesn’t have frame agreement with Germany on labor export. To date, only 200 Vietnamese workers have been sent to the country.

He said that MOLISA, when sending workers abroad, needs to consider the competitiveness of Vietnamese workers, especially workers in fields which other countries like the Philippines, India and Poland have.

Meanwhile, MOLISA’s plan does not mention the capability of Vietnam’s rivals.

A labor expert noted that the redundant workers to be exported are mostly those in technical fields such as IT, electronics and telecommunication. 

Vietnam itself lacks qualified workers in the fields. A report shows that Vietnam will lack 100,000 IT engineers by 2020.

“If the bachelor’s degree graduates really have high quality, they can find good jobs in Vietnam,” he said. “Will the export workers have to undergo re-training when going abroad?”

In general, labor import countries set very high requirements on workers. 

To obtain working visa in Germany, for example, workers must have German skills at B2 level and have at least 2-year experience. 

Meanwhile, MOLISA’s plan shows that a high percentage of redundant workers are trained in social sciences, a field for which there is low demand. 

Nguyen Xuan Vui, director of a labor export company which specializes in exporting IT and mechanical engineering, said that that MOLISA needs to pay attention to training workers in foreign language skills.

Tran Duy Quy, former director of the Vietnam Institute of Agricultural Genetics, also thinks that workers will need retraining.

“Vietnamese workers are trained in many different majors and have different qualifications. The import countries will have to retrain for use. Those who have good abilities and foreign language skills will be trained for high posts,” he said.

A relative of his graduated from a school in Vietnam in industrial design, but could not find a job. 

He left for Japan, where he took a simple job. Luckily, his ability to design clothes was discovered by the employer. He was assigned a good job in this field with monthly pay of $3,000.

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Thanh Mai