Job creation in focus
Despite the creation of 734,000 jobs in the first half of this year, it requires greater efforts to fulfill the yearly target for 1.6 million jobs.
Since early this year, the labour market across the country has picked up with more than 300 employment transactions conducted in 44 provinces and cities so far, double the number recorded in the same period last year.
This is, in part, thanks to the provision of vocational training for about 525,000 people ( accounting for 28 percent of the yearly target) to meet the growing demand for skilled workers in many key industries in the process of restructuring the rural labour force.
As a result, as many as 695,000 jobs have been generated and 39,000 workers sent to work abroad while the number of labour disputes and strikes has dropped sharply.
According to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), there is a stable growth in the traditional labour markets such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan and the Republic of Korea (RoK) despite a fall in the number of Vietnamese guest workers in recent months.
With the Middle East market bouncing back and some new markets taking shape, there is high hope that Vietnam’s labour exports will increase steadily in the second half of this year and next.
Over the past six months, the government’s unemployment insurance policy has paid off well with more than 155,400 workers enjoying insurance benefits, 98,000 people getting new jobs and more than 1,088 receiving vocational training subsidies.
MoLISA Deputy Minister Nguyen Ngoc Phi says there is a sharp increase in the number of job seekers in HCM City and Hanoi.
MoLISA has asked other cities and provinces to keep a close watch on the labour employment situation and ensure suitable subsidies and insurance benefits for the jobless.
The National Employment Fund is responsible for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in getting loans for job creation, instead of lending money directly to households.
Ideally speaking, local authorities should create favourable conditions for jobless workers to borrow money from the National Employment Fund and make it on their own, apart from encouraging businesses to employ them under long-term contracts. However, Minister Phi argues, every enterprise needs capital and skilled workers to keep operating efficiently in the long run.
No doubt, there is an urgent need for a specific support policy to help workers and businesses through a hard time, Phi says. But MoLISA needs more time to conduct a fact-finding survey of the employment situation in all localities before making its final decision.