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Labour shortages puzzle industrial parks
A dire shortage of workers is causing a major headache to executives in southern industrial parks and export-processing zones as they are in need of an estimated 150,000 workers, but supply can meet only half the demand.
An executive from a garments company in Dong Nai Province complained that at the moment it was extremely difficult to recruit staff. The company has received only a few hundred applications for 1,700 vacancies after several months of advertising despite the company’s commitment to cover training costs.
Nguyen Thi Lan, from the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs in Binh Duong province, said that many enterprises in the province, especially in garments, leather shoes and wood processing, have sent officials out to every corner of the province to recruit workers.
The Deputy Head of the Ho Chi Minh City Export-Processing and Industrial Zone Managerial Board (HEPZA), Nguyen Tan Dinh, is also worried over the problems with recruitment, saying that HEPZA alone would be looking for at least 37,000 more workers from now until the end of the year.
However, his boss Vu Van Hoa blamed the problem on employers being negligent in not improving basic living conditions for workers, especially housing and food.
He added that current salaries could not cover the extremely high cost of living in the country’s major cities, making many workers return home to look for local jobs, even at lower salaries.
This is one of the reasons for the massive exodus from export-processing zones and industrial parks, Hoa concluded.
The Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs in the central province of Quang Nam reported that the province had recorded 45,000 local people of working age leaving home mostly for the southern provinces in 2000 but now almost half of them have returned and are working in local businesses.
The Rector of the HCM City Institute for Economics, Tran Du Lich, said that 60 percent of the HEPZA workforce were migrant workers and suffered from hard living conditions and unstable jobs.
To solve the problem, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has come up with several solutions, including a national job creation programme for the 2011-15 period. The scheme will focus on rural labour markets and provide stable jobs with decent incomes.
The General Department of Vocational Training said that it is surveying market demands and the needs of different economic zones in order to provide suitable vocational training.
VOV, VNA
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