The Q3-2020 saw a decrease in recruitment demand across industries in Vietnam. Meanwhile, it increased in FMCG, information technology, energy or insurance in the same period, according to Navigos Search.
Covid-19 consequence
In Q3-2020, recruitment demand of Navigos Search’s clients decreased 23.5% compared to the same period last year. Manufacturing, FMCG, and information technology industries are in the Top 3 of recruitment rate. The highest salary recorded in this quarter is 280 million VND/ month for some candidates in the banking industry.
FMCG and retail companies shifted to online business, leading to a 50% increase in recruitment demand compared to period before July and about 40% -50% higher than Covid-19’s first and second waves. These companies focus on e-commerce, digital marketing, and sales online candidates.
However, one of the obstacles that the Vietnamese candidates face is in-depth expertise and experience in e-commerce and digitalization. This results in domestic and foreign companies call oversea Vietnamese or foreigners to work in Vietnam, expanding the competitiveness of the technological job market.
In addition, enterprises in the energy industry were implementing a number of major energy projects in accordance with the new Government’s regulations in forming a national energy development strategy to 2030 and a vision to 2045.
The energy industry is seeing a wave of investment and cooperation from European and domestic energy developers as well as the US’ participation in the promotion of gas power projects in Vietnam. In addition, many projects valued over $2 billion presented mainly in the Central and the South continue to make recruitment demand increase in the next 3-6 months.
This provided opportunities for local candidates where large energy projects are deployed. Employers in this industry are willing to pay above the average salary due to the sudden increased demand. They also lowered the standards related to professionalism but promoted English and communication skills.
Similarly, IT and Insurance companies needed a large numbers of workforce in QIII. IT companies whether outsourcing or product development needed to recruit programmers. Some new FDI companies focused on recruiting a large number of IT personnel. Due to the small number of qualified personnel in the market, these businesses tended to seek and train candidates from high school.
In commercial Japanese direct investment sector, the recruitment demand decreased significantly due to Covid-19 in the third quarter. Some of the measures applied were to cut wages, month 13th salary, and bonus.
Textile and garment downturn before EVFTA
Facing Covid-19, many textile and garment factories reduced their recruitment significantly. This decline was due to the low purchasing power in Europe, America and other markets. From February 2020 to the beginning of October 2020, many businesses switched to masks and medical gowns production.
Reducing working hours, shifting the full time jobs to part time , and reducing wages were measures to reduce operation cost at large companies in this period. Smaller companies reduced wages and staff. Some companies shut down for a while. Candidates in this industry are facing the risk of unemployment but the opportunities to find new jobs will be vague, let alone finding a new job with the same salary.
However, thanks to the new policies of the bilateral trade agreement, the multilateral trade agreement (EVFTA) is leading textile and garment sector moving from China to Vietnam. Some already registered business in Vietnam. In addition, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Chinese, Japanese and some European investors started to expand their business in Vietnam in the next 3 months.
Some other companies in this industry are expanding operations such as building new factories, or moving factories from other countries to Vietnam, or shifting orders from abroad to Vietnam for production resulting in high recruiting demand. This recruitment will increase in the next 3 -6 months.
Recruitment trend in Q-IV from Japanese recruiters
In Q4, Japanese direct investment companies will increase recruiting more Chinese and Korean candidates as well as high-quality domestic candidates to focus on Korean and Chinese speaking market and large corporations in Vietnam.
Other trend is that Japanese recruiters will want English-proficient candidates and no longer hire Japanese speaking assistant position, in other words, they look for candidates with professional experience. Q4 and early 2021, Hanoi is welcoming two large Japanese retail businesses.
Reporting by My Huyen
Related
Source: Vietnam Insider