Labor market picking up, but employers more picky: Report

Vietnamworks.com, Vietnam’s largest online recruitment solution provider, has seen “signs of recovery” in the labor market, according to its second quarter report.

The report, which was released Saturday, quoted Chris Harvey, managing director of the firm, as saying the online labor indices of the second quarter demonstrated an “employers’ market” with great availability in labor supply.

“However, the online labor demand index moved at a higher speed than the online labor supply index,” he said.

The report said online labor demand index for the second quarter of this year rose by 36.8 percent over the first.

Of the 50 industries on www.vietnamworks.com, online labor demand indices of 34 showed an increase over the first quarter, while that of the remaining 16 stayed unchanged.

Meanwhile, the online labor supply index for the second quarter continued to grow, rising by 9.2 percent against the first quarter.

The report said despite the upward trend in online labor demand, employers have had set recruitment standards at a higher level.

“To some extent, it is a positive trend for the labor market that fosters professionalism of both employers and job seekers,” Harvey said.

“However, job seekers would find it more difficult to get a suitable job as it has become more and more competitive in the past few months,” he said, adding that this trend looked like continuing for months to come.

Sales, manufacturing and marketing sectors showed the smallest gaps between online labor supply and demand among those with the highest labor demand indexes in the second quarter.

In particular, the labor demand index for the sales sector rose by 52.4 percent compared to the previous quarter, while its supply index increased by 10.4 percent, according to the report.

Increased demand for human resources in the key industries to a certain extent indicated that more employers needed people to either help them through the crisis or prepare for the post-crisis phase, the report said.

It said that among the top ten cities and provinces which had the highest labor demand indexes in Q2, Ho Chi Minh City was the most competitive, while Vinh Phuc ranked 10th.

Vinh Bao

thanhnien

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