The hiring intentions of Vietnam’s employers are estimated to increase in the second half of 2022, as positive growth rates are reported in various sectors.

Remarkable economic recovery drives hiring intentions in H2/2022. Photo: Nguyen Viet Thanh/ILO Vietnam

This forecast was announced in the Vietnam Employment Outlook Survey Q3 & Q4 2022 by ManpowerGroup Vietnam. 

About 88% of the surveyed enterprises plan to increase or at least maintain the current headcounts as compared to 95% of the equivalent index in the first half of 2022. The strongest recruitment intentions were reported in Manufacturing & Processing, Wholesale, Retail & Trading, Banking & Finance, Professional Consulting Services, Construction, Food & Beverage & Hospitality - Accommodation and Real Estate. 

Nguyen Xuan Son, Acting Country Operations Manager, Staffing and Outsourcing Services, ManpowerGroup Vietnam, said: “The current Vietnamese labor market is bustling, especially in mass recruitment and blue-collar worker hiring. The Supply Chain/Logistics industry continues its remarkable growth, especially since the pandemic, as it has played a key role in circulation and transportation of goods, necessities, and production materials.”

He added that regarding the demand for blue-collar workers, the group realized that the need for production workers in certain industries, such as Manufacturing, Healthcare - Pharmaceutical, and Consumer Goods, is high. Sectors with high employee turnover currently are Telesales and Customer services in Finance, Insurance, and e-Commerce.

Nguyen Thu Trang, Country Sales Manager, ManpowerGroup Vietnam, said the current demand for recruitment in industrial parks is vibrant, especially in Manufacturing & Processing, Electronics and Technology.

"Many employers said that they could not recruit the desired number of workers despite increasing the benefits package. Besides permanent recruitment services, businesses increasingly use Outsourcing services to supplement their current labor force during peak seasons,” Trang said.

Thanks to the Government’s timely and practical support policies, businesses in Vietnam have been flexibly and proactively adapting to the new normal and maintaining a strong recovery momentum after the pandemic. 

In June, World Bank reported in their Economic Update for Vietnam that the country's GDP may reach a 5.8% growth rate in 2022, higher than the figure of other Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

According to the report, over 70% of the surveyed companies have recovered from the pandemic with 50% or more actively snapping back, and about 12% said that their business operations remained significantly affected.

The recruitment needs of the surveyed enterprises focus mostly on the mid-career ladder. Nearly 50% of enterprises plan to recruit executive positions with at least six months of experience and about one-fourth (24%) are in need of blue-collar workers. 

Recruitment challenges

The survey noted that businesses in various fields are facing recruitment challenges with up to 57% of the responded employers having experienced difficulty in hiring.

Foreign language skill is becoming an indispensable requirement for workers in the workplace. Up to 24% of the respondents reveal that the percentage of their employees with English proficiency is quite low. Particularly, 30% of the surveyed companies revealed that fewer than 10% of their employees have the necessary English skills to work.

Contingent workers are becoming an important human resource strategy as a global employment trend. Up to 45% of surveyed employers said that they intend to use seasonal/part-time workers in the next three to six months. 

Facing recruitment challenges at diverse levels, some 22% of surveyed employers opted to use Executive Search & Permanent recruitment as a human resource solution, while 16% of the companies plan to use Staffing and Outsourcing services to replenish their workforce.

Hanoi strives to meet its goal

Being one of the major cities of Vietnam, Hanoi continues to roll out many solutions to fulfill the target of helping 160,000 workers find jobs for the whole year.

In the last months of 2022, the capital city will continue implementing solutions to energize the labor market, including reducing the time to handle administrative procedures, organizing vocational training and finding new jobs for unemployed people, deploying policies to provide loans for job creation, labor export, production development, restoration and development of traditional handcraft industries.

The Hanoi Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs has improved the operational capacity of employment services to provide market information for employers and job seekers.

The city will also continue to implement policies to support employees, improve labor market forecasting, evaluate applications and approve loans, collect market information, and connect labor supply and demand in parallel with ensuring the prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The department has proposed the municipal authorities raise funds entrusted through the Social Policy Bank branch to provide loans to business households and employees facing difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic to restore production and business activities.

They will also effectively implement the project on improving the operational efficiency of the city’s job exchanges in the 2021-2025 period and the following years.

According to the latest report from the Hanoi Labor, Invalid and Social Affairs Department, the city found jobs for nearly 118,000 people in the first six months of 2022.