VietNamNet Bridge – Employment services and vocational training centres overseen by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union will provide job training to 20,000 young people and jobs to another 25,000 youth this year.

A free haircut class for youth in HCM City. Employment services and vocational training centres in the city will provide job training to 20,000 young people and jobs to another 25,000 youth this year.

They also plan to provide career counselling to 400,000 people, and work more closely with enterprises in industrial parks and export processing zones, said Le Thanh Tu, head of the HCM Communist Youth Union Central Committee's employment division.

Tu spoke this week at a workshop on jobs for young people held by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union.

He said the centres would give priority to job training to match jobs in high demand in their localities.

Also speaking at the workshop, Nguyen Thi Hai Van, head of the Department of Labour and Employment, said the centres had taken an active role in creating jobs for young people in the country.

She praised the quality of programmes at HCM City's Employment Services and Vocational Training Centre for Young People.

The centre, for example, has introduced 4, 215 young people to jobs at bus stations in the city since 2010.

The programme since 2013 has also expanded to the city's industrial parks and export processing zones.

Since 2010, it has provided occupational counselling to 20,000 people in the city and neighbouring provinces, and given career counselling to prisoners released from HCM City jails.

Van said the country's 34 other employment and vocational training centres should learn from the experiences of the HCM City centre.

The centres, she said, should improve career counselling for high school students.

The deputy minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Nguyen Trong Dam, has said that it was important that centres offer career counselling to students' parents as they were influential in students'decisions.

Moreover, students and parents should be provided information about the State's preferential policies on vocational training.

Career counselling, short-time vocational training and courses on occupational skills should also be expanded to poor youth, young people with disabilities, and those with HIV, she said.

Tu said that nearly 200,000 high school students in many provinces and cities had received career counselling through workshops and forums held at schools or via centres' websites.

In addition, centres in HCM City and other provinces often carry out occupational counselling for demobilised soldiers.

The provinces are Yen Bai, Tuyen Quang, Gia Lai, Ha Tinh, Thai Binh, Kien Giang, Ben Tre, Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Ngai, Quang Nam and Quang Binh.

According to 20 of the centres nationwide, more than 9,500 people have been introduced to jobs at enterprises in industrial parks and export processing zones.

A few centres, such as Kien Giang Vocational Training Centre for Young People, have given priority to vocational training in agriculture. Courses include hi-tech paddy-rice cultivation and freshwater fish breeding.

Centres in Ha Noi, Quang Binh Province and Vinh Phuc Province have also introduced youth to jobs in fishing, mechanics and electronics in Malaysia, Korea, Japan, and other countries.

Vu Thi Giang Huong, a colleague of Tu, added that centres in the country had opened courses for 17,300 young people since 2010 to help them start a new business.

Since 2008, the centres have provided loans to young people to start businesses, she added.

Van of the Department of Labour and Employment said that more and more job fairs should also be held to help both youth and employers.

Source: VNS