VietNamNet Bridge – The Poster Da Nang Electronic Co. Ltd has nearly 1,000 bachelor degree holders who work as normal workers. This is just a single example demonstrating the shortcomings and imbalance of the current human resource training in Vietnam.

 

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The company’s HR Director – Mr. Le Duy Luong – says that the company has 16,000 workers, including thousands of workers who are bachelor degree holders and engineers. Some workers even have two bachelor degrees or some couples who are both bachelors or engineers work as normal workers here.

Luong says that the actual number of bachelor-workers in the company is possibly higher because many bachelors hide their diplomas since they are shy to be workers. These people do not want to publicly reveal the identity and the company does not require a bachelor degree. Many bachelors and engineers, therefore, only apply for the job with the high-school diplomas.

On the other hand, they also want to hide their personal information because before 2009, the company did not recruit bachelors to work as normal workers because these people considered this as their temporary job.

Luong says there are three main reasons that force bachelors and engineers to work as normal workers: failing to get suitable jobs with their education, the loss of control in private companies on labor policies such as health insurance, social insurance, maternity policy for female employees and getting a temporary job while seeking another job.

Ms. NHL - graduating from the Da Nang University of Economics, has worked in the company for three years after failing to get a suitable job with her qualification. Her husband, who graduated from the Da Nang University of Technology, is unemployed. The family is now in big difficulty. They have to live in a small hired room and nurse a baby. NHL says she does not tell her parents and her friends about her job because she is embarrassed.
 
Ms. NHH, also a bachelor, says she used to work in a number of private companies but they did not provide her with health insurance, social insurance nor maternity leave, accident insurance, etc. Meanwhile, the wages at Da Nang Poster is equivalent to these companies while the social policies are applied well.

Imbalance in training

After three consecutive years ranking first in Vietnam for the provincial competitiveness index (CPI), in 2012 Da Nang slipped down to the fifth. In particular, its human resource indicator lost the highest points.

According to enterprises in Da Nang, the recruitment is difficult. Meanwhile, the Da Nang Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said that the local vocational training system has been improved and extended with a wide enough scale of industries, to meet the actual need for labor. The number of trained workers is about 30,000 people a year.

But why does this paradox exist?

Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs  - Mr. Nguyen Van An - says the department’s survey in early 2012 showed that up to 49% in the total of 70,000 workers in Da Nang are immigrants. This labor structure is only reasonable for the last decade, when companies mainly invested in the processing industries like garments and footwear, which are labor intensive and do not demand skilled labor. 

The ratio has reduced in recent years, when investment in labor-intensive industries has gradually moved to the countryside. Da Nang’s neighboring provinces have also had their own industrial zones and factories so the migrant labor force in Da Nang has reduced. At the same time, Da Nang residents refuse to do manual jobs while they are unqualified to work in the high-tech industrial enterprises.

It is also said that vocational training in Da Nang does not catch up with the need of the labor market, leading to the imbalance in labor supply. For example, each year the city has 300 pedagogic graduates but the local schools only recruit 15 - 20 people.

Da Nang currently has redundant bachelors, engineers while lacks trained workers.

Na Son