IT FIRMS ANXIOUS ABOUT LOSING WORKERS

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) estimates that Vietnam would need 600,000 workers in the IT industry by 2020, but training establishments can provide only 400,000.

While the number of jobs available in the IT sector increases by 47 percent per annum, the worker supply has increased by 8 percent only. It is expected that by 2020, Vietnam would lack 100,000 IT workers a year by 2020.

While the IT sector always has high demand for workers and IT officers are paid well, it is not considered a career to get rich.

There are 142 universities and 112 junior colleges training IT, but many university graduates cannot satisfy the requirements of the jobs. While some schools cannot enroll enough students for IT majors, prestigious companies train several hundreds of IT students each year.

According to Ngo Van Toan, deputy CEO of Global CyberSort Vietnam, the supply of IT staff is small compared with the demand, thus leading to unsustainable competition which creates high pay, low productivity and regular change of jobs.

According to VietnamWorks, the best known job website, in 2013-2016, the demand for IT workers increased by twofold, while the supply growth did not increase proportionally.

Nguyen Phuong Mai from Navigos Search commented that though the recruitment policies tend to be more open recently, the IT sector still saw a ‘great war for talents’ because of the serious imbalance in the demand and supply.

According to Lam Quang Vu, vice IT dean of the HCMC University of Natural Sciences, his faculty trains 4,000 students each year. In 2012-2017, the number of students finishing school ahead of schedule increased. They need 3-3.5 years only to fulfill 140 credits, finish school and take jobs. However, the total output decreased and only 70-80 percent of students graduate every year.

A report shows that 41 percent of students can find jobs before graduation and 90 percent  six months after the graduation while 70 percent work in their training. majors, mostly at foreign invested enterprises and are paid VND8-10 million a month.

As such, the salary has been increasing considerably in the last few years. The starting salary offered in 2014 was VND8 million on average, while it rose to VND9.5 million in 2016. After two years of working, the pay would be VND16 million, while those with 3-year experience can receive VND18 million a month.

Lai Duc Nhuan, director of Larion, commented that the lack of workers makes it difficult to develop the IT sector. This also explains why Vietnam doesn’t have many companies with more than 1,000 workers.

Source: VIR