VietNamNet Bridge – With a highly skilled labour force, Vietnam is leading the markets of Japan and some European countries, Dao Cong Hai, deputy head of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs' Overseas Labour Management Department, has told Tin Tuc (News) daily.

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

* How do you evaluate the country's labour export in 2013 and its contribution to socio-economic development?

According to department statistics, Vietnam sent 85,000 workers abroad in 2013. They met the targets of last year and saw an increase of around 6 percent compared to the previous year.

This is primarily due to the sudden change in the number of overseas workers in the Taiwan market. By the end of November, the number of people going to work in Taiwan was 41,713, a rise of more than 11,000 workers over 2012.

In addition to this, there was stability in other markets such as Japan and Malaysia.

Vietnam currently has around 500,000 workers who have been working under contracts in 40 countries and territories worldwide. Overseas Vietnamese workers have sent an annual average of 2-2.2 billion USD that has helped thousands of families and workers escape poverty.

During the last five years, the number of people going abroad for work has reached around 80,000, and this has helped reduce job pressure inside the country.

Overseas workers also had a chance to learn new skills and work towards improving their foreign language fluency.

* What are popular fields that greatly require our labour?

Vietnamese labourers overseas have been working mainly in the fields of machinery production, construction, agriculture, elderly care, garment, as housekeepers and as high-skilled workers in some markets.

However, each market has different demands. For example, Japan's market has strict requirements of knowledge, skills, discipline, and health conditions. Japanese trade unions usually go to Vietnam for direct interviews and to select employees.

The average income of overseas Vietnamese workers fluctuates between 300 and 2,000 USD depending on the field, country and the professional skill.

For example, a common worker going to work in Malaysia would have an income between 350 and 450 USD per month.

In Japan and the Republic of Korea, workers in a manufacturing and production factory receive between 800 and 1,500 USD monthly.

* Vietnam is focusing on sending highly skilled workers abroad. How will training and selection for these workers be implemented?

Vietnam is focusing on training management-oriented education and training reform. It is also implementing training support projects for enterprises in an effort to encourage enterprises to conduct training programmes that meet the demand of employers.

With a highly skilled labour force, Vietnam is leading the markets of Japan and some European countries. Germany and Japan currently receive applications for the positions of hospital orderlies and nurses. Workers for these markets are selected carefully, and it takes much more time than it does for other markets.

Selected workers must join longer training programmes compared to others. However, the income from these markets is higher than in other countries.

It is a good opportunity for Vietnamese workers to work in countries that have a highly developed healthcare field. However, the development of highly skilled workers still depends on the individual's capacity for learning foreign languages.

* What are the measures planned for the country's labour export development in 2014?

Priority will be placed on sending skilled and trained workers to work abroad in 2014. As for the labour market, we will continue to consolidate and maintain those in Taiwan and Japan and expect to see some signs of recovery in the Middle East.

However, we are still facing difficulties due to the global economic depression that is still underway and has deepened in the international labour market.

In addition, there was severe competition between labour export countries in the Southeast and South Asian regions such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The problems lie mainly in the fact that the quality of the Vietnamese labour force hasn't met the required demands, especially in the areas of foreign language and discipline. It will be a great challenge for Vietnam to compete with other labour-exporting countries.

Moreover, service companies should actively look for and exploit new markets by seeking new partners for supply contracts. In new markets, the department and companies will ask Vietnamese embassies or foreign affairs representative offices to verify an employer's legal status and working conditions.

Source: Vietnam Plus