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Economic slowdown saps Vietnam’s labor exports
Demand in Vietnam’s major labor export markets has weakened considerably as a result of the global economic recession, officials told a Hanoi conference Monday.
The crisis has adversely impacted the country’s labor export to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and the situation will be more serious next year, said Nguyen Thanh Hoa, deputy minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.
Factories in those markets have to cut operations and provide employees with no extra work, which used to account for 20 to 40 percent of their total income.
“Experts feel the financial crisis will lead to a job crisis with lower production,” Hoa said.
The International Labor Organization figures the number of jobs worldwide will drop by 210 million in 2009.
Around 200 of the 81,000 Vietnamese workers in Taiwan face the prospect of having their labor contracts terminated in advance, said Nguyen Ba Hai, head of the Vietnamese Laborer Management Board in Taiwan.
His Taiwanese counterpart is yet to provide the exact number of laborers who will face this situation, Hai said, adding that those affected will be given some money to go home or given the option of waiting 60 days for local labor offices to take them to other businesses.
But only around 10 percent of such people will find other jobs, he noted.
Some foreign firms, mostly in Taiwan and Malaysia, have stopped receiving Vietnamese workers despite signing contracts, Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, general director of AIC, a manpower exporter, said at the conference.
Around 200 Vietnamese sent by AIC to those markets may have to return home sooner than expected, said Nhan. “We’re making all efforts to protect them.”
Vietnamese Ambassador to Japan, Nguyen Phu Binh, mentioned weaker demand for employees in automobile and electronic industries in Japan.
But there’s a stronger need for nurses, who will be guaranteed work for five to seven years, Binh informed, adding that Vietnam can certainly send at least 10,000 laborers to Japan instead of the current 6,000.
In South Korea, the financial crisis has devalued the won, considerably decreasing the income of employees.
To overcome the difficulties, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs should research the labor market well, carefully consider market demand and vocational training plans, and improve its capacity of analysis and forecast, said Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung.
Relevant agencies should pay due attention to improving laborers’ foreign language skills and knowledge of culture, customs and traditions, as well as the laws of countries which hire them, Hung said.
The labor ministry should strengthen its relationships with other countries in the area of labor export, he added.
The deputy prime minister also stressed the necessity of ensuring vocational training and labor exports are in line with the poverty reduction target.
“In the 61 poorest districts, we will implement preferential vocational training policy for young people. We will offer them not only free vocational training, but also assistance with accommodation. In each poor district, just 100 people working abroad can help 61,000 households escape poverty in the next one or two years,” he noted.
Vietnam has annually sent some 83,000 laborers abroad in recent years, accounting for 5 percent of total jobs created each year, according to the labor ministry.
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LABOR FIGURES IN FOCUS
Some 500,000 Vietnamese employees working in more than 40 countries and territories have annually earned US$1.6-2 billion.
Vietnam has targeted to send 90,000 laborers abroad in 2009 and 100,000 in 2010, up from the estimated 85,000 in 2008, and increase the rate of Vietnamese employees working overseas from 2010 undergoing vocational training to 70-80 percent.
The country also aims to generate 3-3.2 million jobs, and keep the urban unemployment rate below 5 percent in 2009 and 2010, according to the ministry. |
Ngan Anh, Kap Thanh Long
thanhnien
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