Dao Cong Hai, deputy head of the Overseas Labour Management Department, shed some light on the causes of the downward trend and solutions to revamp the market in an interview granted to VOVNews recently.

VOVNews: Could you make an in-depth analysis of the labour market over the past six months in the wake of the global economic recession?
Mr Hai: The global economic crisis has had a negative impact on all the markets that recruit guest workers, including Vietnamese. We only sent just over 33,400 workers abroad, meeting 37 percent of the yearly plan. The number of workers to Taiwan and Malaysia fell considerably to 8,752 and 1,257, respectively. However, labour markets in the Republic of Korea and Japan are showing signs of recovery. The Middle East region remains a strong potential market for Vietnamese workers.

In the past six months, many labour export businesses have had to wind up contracts ahead of schedule for workers who were made redundant and returned to Vietnam as a result of job cuts overseas. They also provided preferential loans for workers to attend vocational training courses or generate jobs themselves from developing household economies or small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The labour export businesses have now shifted from industries that incur risks and cut production such as automobile assembling, electronic spare parts manufacturing, garments and construction, to those that still have a great demand for employees, including food processing, education, health care, agriculture and fishing.

The crisis is a chance for our labour exporters to restructure themselves and improve the quality of the labour force. Some businesses have focused on training skilled workers for the shipbuilding, welding and mechanical engineering sectors that offer high wages.

We hope that with these efforts, the labour market will pick up in the remaining months of this year.

VOVNews: Could you give us a brief view on the labour export project for poor districts which is being carried out by the Overseas Labour Management Department? What are the difficulties and your solutions?
Mr Hai: The Prime Minister has approved this project to help residents in disadvantaged areas improve their standards of living. These people lead hard lives due to poor educational knowledge and occupational training.

Under the project, workers will be helped to attend school and vocational training and foreign language courses to ensure they meet future employers’ requirements. The project is being piloted in Yen Bai, Thanh Hoa and Quang Ngai provinces before being replicated in other provinces and cities.

Normally, most workers spend three months attending those courses before being recruited. For workers in these poor districts, it takes them at least 6 to 12 months to finish the courses. Workers are also classified according to their education levels and occupational skills to match appropriate markets later.

We hope that local administrations will encourage their residents to grasp the chance to work overseas. At the same time, the media will enhance its dissemination of this information so that people realise the long-term importance of labour exports.

VOVNews: The department is also implementing a vocational training project for workers. Does it benefit workers from these poor districts?
Mr Hai: The project will train skilled workers, therefore, learners must be finished with 12^th grade education. In addition, the course will require high initial cost. After being classified, if any of the workers from these poor districts meets the criteria, they can attend the course.