A firm sets up a table on a road to recruit new workers in Binh Duong Province
Binh Duong is currently home to nearly 5,000 foreign-invested firms and 53,000 Vietnamese firms. It is expected that the number of enterprises will increase as more investors are seeing opportunities in the province thanks to a favourable investment environment and good infrastructure. They are, however, facing a shortage of workers.
Pisen Company in Nam Tan Uyen Industrial Zone is offering a good monthly salary of VND 12 million (USD 522) for a manual worker but has been unable to employ 200 more staff members.
Head of the production department at Apparel Far Eastern Company, Pham Thi Duyen, said that they now needed some 2,000 workers to expand production but haven't received any applications.
"Besides offering higher salaries and bonuses, we've pledged to assist workers to find suitable housing and arrange travel from home to work, but we've been unable to find workers," she said. "This has affected our processing of new orders for clients."
According to the Binh Duong Provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, local firms need to recruit some 40,000 workers, 70 percent of them being manual workers.
Explaining the labour shortage in the area, department deputy director Pham Van Tuyen, said that the establishment of more industrial zones in many other localities had changed the worker flows.
"Workers now have more choices and they prefer to work in their hometowns, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, " he said. "We are working with other provinces to discuss labour exchange programmes."
