VietNamNet Bridge - Low labor costs must not be considered Vietnam’s advantage to attract investment and develop economy in the new development period, experts say.

Low labor costs must not be considered Vietnam’s advantage to attract investment and develop economy in the new development period.

Cecil Murray J. Hood, a famous lawyer from New Zealand, who has had a strong attachment to Vietnam’s business culture since 2003, said previously Vietnamese businessmen usually asked about opportunities to expand foreign markets, but they now express their concern about the labor force for the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) period.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh, amid the optimistic forecast that TPP would bring the high GDP growth rate of 10.5 percent and export growth rate of 28.4 percent to Vietnam by 2025, warned that Vietnam would face big challenges in the labor market.

In fact, experts gave warnings about the problems in the labor market a long time ago. Vietnam seriously lacks skilled workers, especially manufacturing and information technology engineers.

According to Trinh Thu Hong, head of the personnel division of FPT, the Vietnamese largest information technology group, less than 40 percent of 1,000 engineers can work immediately after they finish university.

She went on to say that the demand for bridge engineers, who not only need to have good professional knowledge but also proficient foreign language skills, is very high. 

TPP would bring the high GDP growth rate of 10.5 percent and export growth rate of 28.4 percent to Vietnam by 2025

Nguyen Ngoc Trung, who has been working as the manager at the Vietnam Steel Corporation and Viet Mineral Group for 25 years, noted that the engineers in black metallurgy and manufacturing trained in Vietnam have quality at ‘moderate level’.

Trung said the lack of professional knowledge and foreign language skills is the biggest barrier that prevents Vietnamese engineers from working with foreign specialists. This also explains why Vietnamese engineers prefer working in offices and making drawings to working on sites.

With 6,000 textile & garment enterprises and 2.5 million direct and 2 million indirect workers, the market of laborers for the textile & garment industry is predicted to become ‘scorching hot’ by 2025.

According to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (Vinatas), with TPP, the industry, which has revenue of $27.5 billion in 2015, can expect $31 billion the next year and $45-50 billion by 2020.

Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, every one billion dollars of textile and garment exports can generate 250,000 jobs, which means 5.6 million jobs would be created from now to 2020.

Tieu Yen Trinh, CEO of Talentnet, said the changes in Vietnamese business administration would be needed in the TPP period. 

In the past, only foreign invested enterprises and fast moving consumer goods manufacturers showed interest in human resource restructuring consultancy services. Meanwhile, the number of orders from Vietnamese enterprises has increased hugely.


DNSG