VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese students have been caught in a vicious circle: they try to obtain university education at any costs, but become redundant after the graduation. Therefore, they have to continue studying for master degree to become redundant once again.

Hundreds of university graduates decide to continue studying for master degree every year just because they cannot find jobs after the graduations. However, the master degree also cannot help them find jobs.

The Q1 labor market bulletin released by the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs on March 21 showed that Vietnam has had 72,000 more workers with university and junior college degrees become redundant than by the end of the fourth quarter of 2012.

The bulletin also pointed out that the number of workers finishing junior colleges (3-year training) is four times higher, while the number of workers with university degree is three times higher than the other workers.

Especially, the proportion of unemployed young people aged 20-24, i.e. those who have graduated from junior colleges and universities (4-5 year training) is very high of up to 20.75 percent.

Human resource experts have pointed out that the high percentage of unemployed workers with higher education and the sharp increase in the number of the employed (1.7 times higher than 2012’s) can show the great waste of money and society’s resources.

The Postgraduate Training Division of the Da Nang University has confirmed the increasingly high number of university graduates registering to continue studying for master degree in recent years.

An officer of the division affirmed that most of the postgraduates register the training courses just because they don’t want to stay idle while looking for jobs.

Also according to the officer, in the years before 2010, only 15-20 percent of students continued studying for master degree. Meanwhile, the proportion is now very high at 50 percent.

The Da Nang University opens one or two more master training majors every year. It now offers 29 training majors for master degrees and 18 majors for doctorates.

It is estimated that the school receives 1,000 postgraduates every year after two enrolment campaigns.

Not only Da Nang, many other schools, central and local, have also been expanding their training scale by opening new training majors and increasing the number of postgraduates.

Therefore, experts said that Vietnam produces a huge number of new bachelors and PhDs every year, and that the figure about the 72,000 unemployed masters and bachelors is not a surprise at all. The high unemployment rate gives universities more jobs and more chances to expand their training scale.

A question has been raised that what the 72,000 unemployed masters and bachelors would do in the immediate time, if they are still refused by employers.

It is highly possible that a lot of them, who have master degrees, would continue studying to obtain doctorate.

Meanwhile, Tieu Yen Trinh, CEO of Talentnet, a HR resource solution provider, has warned that the long term unemployed workers would find it more difficult to seek new jobs. It is because they cannot practice their skills during the unemployment period.

Dat Viet