Since the end of last year to date, Apple has been recruiting a series of senior positions in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, fueling rumor that the US-based tech giant is moving to build a plant here.

Apple is annoucing job openning for engineers and managers in Vietnam in its website.

On its official website, Apple is annoucing job openning for engineers and managers in production, quality control, sales or supply chain in the country’s two major cities.

For each position, Apple requires candidates to have from three to five years of working experience, while language skills such as English, Korean and Chinese would be an advantage.

Most positions would be involved with various stages in product development and subsequent production processes.

The move could be seen as sign that Apple is accelerating its plan to move production out of China, especially as Apple’s plants and facilities are forced to suspend operation under the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last year, Nikkei Asian Review reported Apple planned to start trial production of its popular AirPods wireless earphones in Vietnam as it seeks to diversify manufacture beyond China.

China's GoerTek, one of Apple's key contract manufacturers, has begun testing the resilience of its manufacturing processes for the newest generation of AirPods at its audio factory in northern Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Apple’s main assembly partner for AirPods, Inventec, on March 24 revealed it is preparing to establish a unit in Vietnam, Bloomberg reported.

In a recent move, Taipei-listed Wistron Corporation, one of Apple’s manufacturing partners, chose Vietnam as part of its US$1-billlion expansion plan for this year and the next, revealed Bloomberg.

While other Apple partners such as Hon Hai Precision Industry, Inventec and Pegatron are working on a similar move, Bloomberg suggested this could reshape tech supply chains.

VinaCapitla in its report stated the view that the Covid-19 pandemic will ultimately benefit Vietnam’s economic prospects.

In recent years, multinationals like Samsung, LG Group, and a plethora of Japanese manufacturers have been moving factories from China to Vietnam, or have been establishing new production facilities in Vietnam rather than in China.

The Covid-19 pandemic is expected to accelerate companies’ efforts to re-locate production out of China, partly because the trade war will intensify after the Covid-19 medical emergency abates, the report suggested.

Some companies have been reluctant to move production facilities from China to Vietnam in the past because supply chains in Vietnam lack depth. Given the severity of what the world is experiencing right now, coupled with concerns about China's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“FDI companies will be prompted to not only continue establishing new factories in Vietnam, but to also start imbuing local suppliers with much more technical and operational expertise in order to support the production of those multinationals in Vietnam,” stated VinaCapital.