Front office, housekeeping workers see more job opportunities in ASEAN
Among professionals of Vietnam’s tourism industry, front office and housekeeping workers would see more job opportunities in ASEAN when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is in place.
According to the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals, qualified tourism workers in the front office, housekeeping, food production, food and beverage service, travel agency and tour operation fields will be allowed to freely travel for guest work within the bloc, hopefully next year.
The agreement clarifies qualified tourism professionals can apply for jobs in other ASEAN member states, and tourism companies can look for qualified candidates from the AEC to meet their employment needs.
Front office and housekeeping workers would have more opportunities to find suitable jobs in the region, especially at international hotels, Ha Van Sieu, deputy head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said at a news briefing on the implementation of the agreement in HCMC recently.
Sieu predicted Vietnamese tourism workers could search for jobs in Singapore and Malaysia where they can earn higher wages than at home.
Sieu did not provide the exact number of Vietnamese tourism workers but said employees at hotels outnumber those in other fields.
Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh told a question-and-answer session of the National Assembly in Hanoi nearly two weeks ago that the tourism industry employs around 700,000 direct laborers and 1.2 million indirect workers.
Vietnam has yet to complete national standards for the front office and housekeeping workers, so it is impossible to make comparison with those of other ASEAN countries. But Sieu said the standards for the four remaining labor divisions have been completed and are generally higher than the average of ASEAN.
Vietnamese tourism workers can compete well in job skills with their regional peers but might be in a disadvantage when it comes to foreign language proficiency and discipline.
“If local laborers meet the domestic standards, they can work in foreign countries, even in Europe as our standards were prepared with the support of the European side. However, many of them are still weak in foreign languages,” Sieu added.
According to VNAT, ASEAN member states still have much technical work to do for the implementation of the agreement. However, the country has test run a website for Vietnamese to find jobs in the bloc and regional employers to find Vietnamese qualified personnel.