Feature: Rising unemployment among bachelor degree holders in Vietnam
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E-mail Xinhua, April 17, 2014
There is now an increasing number of unemployed college graduates in Vietnam, which shows a wide gap between the number of graduates and the actual manpower requirements of Vietnamese business establishments.
Statistics from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) showed that for the first three months of 2014, the rate of unemployed college and university graduates, aged between 20 and 24, has increased by 20.75 percent year on year.
A total of more than 72,000 Vietnamese with bachelor and master degrees nationwide are under the "unemployment" status, which is 1. 7 times more than the figure recorded in late 2012.
In southern Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City, a key economic hub and large training center of the country, each year there are about 55, 000 graduates from colleges, universities, and vocational training schools and centers.
Many of the graduates cannot find jobs for which they are trained due to their lack of soft skills and practical experience.
"I have applied for a job in many companies, both domestic and foreign, but all I got was to wait for their call. So far, there has been no call," 25-year-old Do Quang Liem told Xinhua.
A graduate from the Saigon University here with a bachelor's degree in accounting, Liem has been jobless for the past two years. Most of the companies to which he applied told him that he should have at least two years of practical experience in accounting. Because of this, Liem has to take temporary jobs to earn a living.
Liem is not an exception among thousands of university graduates who could not find jobs suitable to what they have learned in school.
For example, 24-year-old Nguyen Hoa Mai, a graduate from HCM City Banking Academy, was forced to work as an English tutor for a 7th-grade pupil for more than a year now since she could not find work in a bank.
"It's okay to earn my living by teaching English now, but I still want to do a job related to banking or financing in which I was trained in college," Mai said.
Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the HCM City's Forecasting Center for Human Resources Demand and Labor Market Information ( FALMI), said the rate of local unemployed bachelor degree holders rose by 9.89 percent as of late 2013 partly due to the economic difficulties in recent years.
Tuan said that this only reflects the fact that university- level graduates now surpass the demand for manpower, and the city' s economic growth could not catch up with the increasing number of new college graduates seeking employment.
According to FALMI, each year HCM City needs around 265,000 laborers, of whom only 13 percent are required to have a bachelor degree.
Meanwhile, there are 70,000 graduates from colleges and universities, excluding thousands of other graduates from part- time training system. If they all stay and want to find jobs in the city,they will face a fierce competition among each other and the unemployment rate will continue to rise.
HCM City has 54 universities, 25 colleges, 11 vocational training schools, and nearly 450 vocational training centers. Nearly 80 percent of the graduates could find jobs but only half are suited to their training in schools.
But statistics of the HCM City Computer Association showed that business process outsourcing firms in the city need around 80,000 information technology employees and computer schools can meet only 20 percent of the demand.
Moreover, the quality of new graduates has yet to meet the requirements of employers with only 10 out of every 100 engineers having the necessary skills required.
"Many students are good in mastering their professional skills, but their practical application is not good, hence employers have to re-train them for a certain period of time and that's why they hesitate to recruit new graduates," said a director of a company in HCM City specializing in computer repair and maintenance.
Professor Pham Minh Hac, former Vietnamese minister of education and training and a respected educator, attributed the lack of employment opportunities for college graduates to the low quality and inadequate training in some educational institutions.
"There are so many colleges, universities and vocational training centers opened each year that led to the surplus of graduates over demand. In particular, many private universities have sub-standard training, with an estimation of only one out of ten students reaching the required university-level standard," said Hac.
During a recent meeting with the National Assembly deputies, Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan acknowledged the current unemployment among bachelor degree holders in Vietnam.
"The ministry is now focusing more on improving the training quality as well as strictly supervising management at educational institutions nationwide. Establishing new colleges, universities, and training centers must be guided by the government's 2011-2020 master plan for human resources development as well as the localities' demand for labor. Endi
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