According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), Vietnam will be among the top 15 countries in the world with a population of 100 million people or more in 2023.

This marks an important milestone for Vietnam. The country is a vast market but also a nation with a plentiful labor force in a golden population period with great opportunities for development.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), countries with 30 percent of its population children aged below 14 and 15 percent of people aged 65 or more are considered to be in the "golden population" period.

In 2022, Vietnam had more than 50 percent of people of working age, while the number of people aged 65 or higher accounted for nearly 8 percent of the population. 

It is expected that the number of people aged 65 or more will be higher than 15 percent by 2039, the time when the golden population period will end in Vietnam.

The golden population periods lasted 140 years in France, 85 years in Sweden, and 72 years in the US.

The aging population in Vietnam is occurring when the GDP per capita by 2040 will reach $15,000 per annum, much lower than the $30,000 per annum of developed countries, according to a scenario developed by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI). This will have a negative impact on economic development and the nation’s goals.

The years from 2020 to 2030 are believed to be the optimal time for the country’s economic development. However, it may not escape the middle-income trap and may never become a developed country if development does not strongly improve.

However, a golden population just brings opportunity and doesn’t guarantee economic breakthroughs. 

Quality: not golden

Vietnam’s current productivity is 11 percent of Singapore's, 23 percent of South Korea's and 24 percent of Japan's. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s productivity is only higher than Cambodia (2.4 times), Myanmar (1.6 times) and Laos (1.2 times). 

The GSO’s 2019 population census found that 80.8 percent of the population aged 15 or more do not have professional qualifications. 

Vietnam now has a plentiful labor force, but it is largely untrained and low cost, while quality is in low value chains.

According to the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), Vietnam has 55 million workers, but only 24.5 percent have education degrees and certificates. The figure is just 1/3 of developed industries in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

According to the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM), unskilled and informal workers account for a large proportion. Currently, Vietnam is among the countries with a low position in national competitiveness indexes, which is attributed to human resources. 

Vietnam, for example, only had a 46/100 score in working skills, and ranked 103rd out of 141 ranked countries. It ranked 102nd out of 141 countries in training quality.

As for HDI (human development index), which measures population quality, announced by UNDP, Vietnam has never fallen into the top 100 countries. Productivity remains the weakest factor when considering population quality.

Vietnam is seriously lacking skilled workers, workers with technical expertise, and managers and innovators, the people who can lead the economy.

Education is the key 

Economists cited success stories from Japan and Germany, saying that despite destruction during the World War 2, they could rise became developed countries thanks to well-trained workforces.

They said Vietnam should learn from these countries, building a reasonable system of policies to manage the labor market, and link vocational training with the market.

Expert Nguyen Dinh Cung said that Vietnam’s growth is on the decrease, 0.5 percentage point every 10 years. The time of high growth is too short, not enough to escape the middle-income trap.

In the first 10 years (1991-2000), Vietnam obtained an average GDP growth rate of 7.56 percent. In the second 10 years (2001-2010) it was 6.61 percent. In the third 10 years (2011-2020) it was 6 percent. And in the first three years of the fourth 10 years, the figure is estimated at 5.6 percent.

If Vietnam wants to obtain the average growth rate of 7 percent, it will have to gain the growth rate of 9 percent per annum in 2024 and 2025, a very heavy task in the current conditions.

Tran Thuy