Around 20-30 percent of young people are working far from their homes to make a living. In urban areas, young people aged between 15-30 account for approximately 25 percent of the country’s total young people and 43 percent of the urban population. On average, nearly 90 percent of urban young people have jobs, and around 6 percent of them are unemployment.

Recent statistics showed that in 2006 Vietnam had 43.44 million people of working age, about 47 percent of them are between 15-34. About 50 percent of young people finish secondary or high school, and an additional 20,000 young people are employed each year.

Intensifying measures to generate jobs

In the 2001-2005 period, great efforts were made to generate jobs for more than 1.5 million labourers annually, of whom young people accounted for 70 percent. Socio-economic development programmes have helped create jobs for around 3-4 million young people. The National Fund also provided jobs for 1.7 million labourers. In 2005, more than 70,000 workers and experts were recruited to work abroad, bringing the total number of Vietnamese guest workers to 400,000, earning US$1.5 billion. At each job bazaar, about 16,000 people registered to seek jobs with nearly 3,000 people wishing to take part in vocational training courses. Of these, over 1,000 labourers were employed.

Last year alone, Vietnam generated jobs for 1.572 million people, exported 78,855 guest workers and experts, mostly young people. Job service centers provided employment information for 450,000 labourers and helped more than 90,000 labourers get jobs. Job bazaars were held in 40 provinces and cities nationwide, drawing the participation of 70 businesses and 50,000 visitors at each bazaar on average.

Still failing to meet requirements

Le Quang Trung, Deputy Director of the Labour and Employment Department under MoLISA, said the labour market has developed unevenly among localities. The vocational training centers have not met society’s requirements while the quality of training remains poor, directly affecting the job generation for young people.

The Department of Labour and Employment predicts that from now till 2010, around 1.4 to 1.5 million young people will enter their working age. Under the national target programme on employment in the 2006-2010 period, and the Development Strategy for Vietnamese youths till 2010, Vietnam aims to create jobs for 75-77 percent of the total labourers, raising the rate of well-trained young people to 40 percent. Mr Trung said it is necessary to take synchronized measures to improve the quality of labour and reduce unemployment rates among young people.

In addition, it is very important to perfect the documents that guide the implementation of the Law on Youth and to create legal corridors for action plans. Moreover, it is necessary to supplement and perfect policies to encourage young people to create jobs themselves. Especially, due attention should be paid to highly-skilled young people, and those in rural areas, industrial parks and export processing zones, as well as the disabled and ethnic minority groups. Information system in the labour market should be improved to facilitate the development of direct transactions between employees and employers. Besides, it is necessary to implement the national target programme on employment effectively, boost labour export and develop vocational training in association with socio-economic strategies in each region, integrate vocational training programmes into poverty reduction and other programmes.

Special attention should also be paid to developing short-term vocational training, especially for labourers in rural and ethnic minority areas, to shift the farming structure into that of serving industry.