According to data from the recruitment technology platform JobOKO, the 2025 labor market shows a clear divergence, heavily favoring experienced personnel. 

Job positions for the group of new graduates with less than one year of experience have decreased by nearly 13 percent compared to the previous year.

This decline is mainly concentrated in Administrative - Human Resources (down 53 percent), Accounting (down 36 percent), and Finance - Banking (down 35 percent). Notably, this is the second consecutive year these sectors have recorded a sharp drop in demand for young talent.

This trend indicates that new graduates are under increasing pressure as job opportunities diminish, competition rates rise, and entry-level skill requirements are  higher.

Furthermore, statistics show that the group of workers with less than one year of experience also accounts for the highest layoff rate, at over 45 percent. In a context where most personnel leaving jobs belong to the under-one-year experience group, new hires are primarily candidates with 1-3 years of experience (accounting for over 75 percent), creating immense pressure for those just joining the market.

Regarding the reasons for personnel downsizing, most businesses stated that employees failed to meet competency requirements. Additionally, organizational restructuring, declining business efficiency, and the need to optimize personnel costs are also influential factors.

Pham Thi Huyen Nga, Head of Recruitment and Training Cooperation at FPT Software, stated that businesses face many pressures to optimize costs and efficiency amid economic volatility.

Therefore, companies often prioritize experienced staff to reduce training time and ensure immediate work performance. For new graduates, according to Huyen Nga, the biggest weakness is the gap between education and practical requirements.

“At FPT Software, while there are hundreds of applications for one position each year, the interview failure rate is up to 60 percent. The main reasons are candidates’ lack of experience in real project implementation, insufficient soft skills such as communication and teamwork, and especially weak foreign language skills,” Nga said.

Bui Thi Khuyen from the HR department of a large chain of custom-built computer, laptop, and component stores, said the core issue lies in the gap between employers’ expectations and the actual readiness of fresh graduates.

Companies often prefer candidates with hands-on experience to shorten training time and need more flexible, multitasking employees. As a result, fresh graduates lacking work experience and skills find it difficult to immediately meet job requirements.

What opportunities are there for new graduates?

To increase employment chances and adapt quickly to the corporate environment, according to Bui Thi Khuyen, students need to clearly understand what businesses want for the position they are applying for and identify what they lack in the required competencies to plan for self-improvement.

Khuyen believes that young people need good specialized knowledge and an understanding of other related fields. In addition, candidates must refine skills such as effective communication, time management, problem-solving, listening, and conveying information, while maintaining a progressive and responsible attitude.

“To get that capacity, students should participate in internships early, performing tasks related to their major and future profession with a learning attitude (without demanding salary or benefits) and should not feel pressured about making a lot of money during this time,” Bui Thi Khuyen said.

Nga also emphasized that students need to accumulate practical experience through internships, projects, and competitions to narrow the gap with job requirements. In addition, soft skills, strong foreign language proficiency, professional attitude, and adaptability are essential to integrate into a global working environment.

“The demand for hiring Freshers at FPT Software is still very high, accounting for about 20-25 percent. This shows that opportunities remain wide open for young people. However, recruitment standards are higher than before. Therefore, students need to upgrade their professional skills, soft skills, foreign languages, and especially the spirit of 'learning to grow' to meet the increasingly strict requirements of enterprises,” Nga emphasized.

According to JobOKO, based on an analysis of more than 580,000 job postings in the first 10 months of 2025, the industries leading in salary levels show a trend similar to 2024. These include healthcare and pharmaceuticals, IT and software, mechatronics, business and sales, auditing, finance and banking, and marketing and communications.

Among them, healthcare and pharmaceuticals and IT and software are the two sectors with the highest median salaries in the current labor market.

At the management or department head level, healthcare and pharmaceuticals recorded the highest median salary at around VND70 million per month, while IT and software followed closely with a peak median salary of more than VND68.4 million per month.

Du Lam