But Vietnam’s economic performance and growth over the decades since then set the clock ticking down on when that manpower supply would run out.
Today – it has run out – and domestic and foreign sector manufacturers such as those in Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s largest economic hub, are facing a chronic shortage of highly skilled apprentices and unskilled production workers.
Whether it be production linemen, machine operators, warehouse personnel or in the front office— the manufacturing segment is facing a critical worker shortage and struggling to meet its needs, said Duong Minh Tam.
Mr Tam, who is deputy head of the Saigon Hi-Tech Park, which has a need for roughly 24,000 employees to run at full production, stresses the park urgently needs industrial workers, particularly skilled machinists.
Speaking at a recent business forum in the City, he said, with the relatively small number of workers in hand, the park has not been able to go on round-the-clock full production, leaving machines set idle.
Nguyen Thanh Tung of the Export Processing and Industrial Zone Authority (HEPZA) is another employer who is now having sleepless nights, worrying about the huge loss of revenue if he continues to operate with only about 30-40% of his required workforce.
Mr Tung, who is the director of the Job Opportunity Centre at the industrial park, notes that in total 50,000 employees are needed but the park is nowhere near the required number it needs.
Employers in the park have invested in a great amount of automation and complex machinery but are reluctant to invest in the good and extensive training programs required to get local workers up to speed, he said.
While at the same they also are unwilling to pay the higher salaries it takes to attract job applicants, who say the wages and salaries offered in the City industrial zones is inadequate to support a decent lifestyle for themselves and their families.
Most manufacturers are under the impression that if they provide quality apprentice-type training for local people – once trained – they will leave and accept employment elsewhere.
They just don’t believe there is a good rate of return on their investment to provide training and are under the collective belief that the government (or the City) should provide the training, or at least, underwrite the cost.
Nguyen Van Be, president of the HEPZA Businesses Association, in turn pointed to the need for companies to work more closely with vocational training centres in training students.
There are more than 20,000 students graduating from vocational training schools each year, he said, but companies still face manpower shortages due to a skills gap between labour supply and demand.
The typical factory today is very automated, said Mr Be, and it is normal to have, programmable logic controllers, computers, robots, palletizers and a host of other automatic packaging equipment.
To operate and maintain this kind of equipment requires high quality apprentice type training that the nation’s universities, colleges and vocational schools have not and are not adequately providing.
Admittedly, Mr Be acknowledges, this still doesn’t solve the immediate worker shortage crisis or the question of who should fund the cost for advanced training that is so desperately needed.
