VietNamNet Bridge – HCM City’s IT sector is one of the top 10 sectors that will need a large number of staff over the next three years.

Photo: VNS

Truong Le My Ngoc, head of the Centre of Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information (FALMI), said the city would need an average of nearly 300,000 IT engineers working in hardware, software, services and digital content each year in the forecast period.

Phi Anh Tuan, deputy chairman of HCM City’s Computer Association, said that although Viet Nam had been faced with economic difficulties, the information and communication sector had experienced stable growth in the last two years.

This sector is expected to continue expanding this year, especially its software and outsourcing service, according to Tuan.

Information, communication and technology companies are worried about having enough staff to fill positions.

Currently, the number of students studying in the IT sector are insufficient, and graduates only fill 75 per cent of employers’ demands.

Moreover, the number of students studying in IT faculties in universities, colleges and vocational training schools has fallen in recent years, he added.

A survey conducted at 51 universities and colleges with IT engineers in HCM City showed that these schools trained only 6,795 IT students in 2012, compared to 7,412 IT engineers in 2011.

Initial figures of the Information and Technology Department last year showed that the country has 290 universities, colleges and vocational schools that provide IT training, an increase of 13 compared to 2011.

The total new enrollment quota per year for all of these institutions is nearly 64,796 students, an increase of more than 4,000 against 2011.

However, the real number of applicants has reached only 85 per cent of that figure.

Tuan said that students were not provided detailed information about jobs in the sector, even though IT jobs were more stable than many other kinds of positions.

Seventy per cent of the total number of newly graduated IT engineers last year found jobs in IT companies, and the remaining 30 per cent found jobs in related fields.

Their average salary was VND5-10 million (US$238-476).

Tuan said that IT training schools were working with IT companies to turn out engineers for their employment, and that most graduates could find jobs immediately after leaving school because of this cooperation.

Source: VNS