Le Tuan Hoa, head of the Vietnam Mathematics Institute

Pham Bach Duong, deputy CEO of PwC, however, said there were many posts in her auditing firm which need workers with deep knowledge in math.

PwC recently looked for eight workers for jobs auditing businesses’ information system and with good knowledge in math and informatics. The number of applications was very modest.

Mathematics university graduates complain it is difficult for them to find jobs, while mathematicians say the national economy is still not developed enough to use many workers with mathematical knowledge and skills.

Nguyen Bao Trung from VP Bank said there were many posts in the banking sector which need workers with good knowledge in math, such as risks management officers or business strategy analysts.

Ho Thanh Tung, director of Oracle Vietnam, once a math student,said math knowledge and logical deduction can be applied in many different fields.

Nevertheless, according to Do Duc Thai, Math Dean of the Hanoi University of Education, the number of math graduates has been very modest in recent years.

Le Tuan Hoa, head of the Vietnam Mathematics Institute, said employment has been the focal concern for math students over many years. 

Hoa said math professors in developed countries are surprised when hearing his story about the difficulties mathematicians face looking for jobs.

In developed countries, it is difficult to become a math professor or obtain posts of math lecturers at universities, but it is relatively easy to find jobs in business sectors.

“In the US, there are many university graduates who are redundant, but there are not unemployed math students. Why?” Hoa questioned.

According to Hoa, the unemployment of math graduates is attributed to two reasons.

“Vietnam’s economy is not developed enough to use workers with knowledge in math. Math learners cannot prepare themselves well enough to obtain jobs,” Hoa said.

Hoa advised math students to concentrate on their studies and spend time to learn other necessary skills such as foreign languages and soft skills.

Tung also said that English and soft skills in modern times are indispensable tools that are useful in all business fields. 

He noted that the advantage of math students over students in other majors is analytical capability. Studying math can equip students with a ‘powerful weapon’ that other students don’t have.

Meanwhile, Phung Kim Dung, a math teacher from the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, the most prestigious high school in Hanoi, believes that good math learners would not lack jobs. 

She also believes that learning foreign languages and having soft skills are not a difficult challenge for math learners.

Le Van