The unskilled labour market, which normally sees an upswing during the last quarters, has shown a lack of vitality this year.
Job-seekers search for work at employment agencies
Usually employers hire more labourers during the third and fourth quarters in order to meet contract deadlines. However, this year the trend has changed. At the well-known employment fair held in Binh Thanh District, which is indicative of the employment situation in HCM City, there were significantly fewer positions offered than in years past.
In 2011, employers posted 2,856 job openings, compared to just 1,496 this year. After two events held in October, the number of people hired dropped by 50% from last year.
Labour recruitment needs in the third quarter increased by only 0.62%, as large inventories have made enterprises hesitant to add more workers to production lines.
It was estimated that HCM City will add only 65,000 new jobs in the last months of the year.
Kim Phung, an employee at YES-Centre in HCM City, a group providing job consultancy services and vocational training for inner-city youth, said that construction companies have been recruiting less. Even openings for skilled labour, for jobs like accounting, have gone down and those openings which do exist are paying on average 10% to 20% less.
The same trend can be seen in Hanoi. Vu Thi Thanh Lieu, Deputy Director of Hanoi Job Introduction Centre said, "Due to the economic downturn and a reduction in consumption, many companies are tightening their purse strings, especially when it comes to temporary workers."
With such a scarcity of jobs labour strikes are also down by 20%-30% from last year.
Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Managing Director of Navigos Search, a leading "solutions provider" for executive recruitment in Vietnam, said that the largest demand for workers at the moment is in retail, with employers mainly searching for employees just to keep up pace with those who are retiring.
On the other hand, many Japanese firms have increased investment in the country, actively recruiting and hiring in the manufacturing sector.
Anh added that, though the banking sector is in crisis mode, its employees continue to come out on top, while many banks seek foreign talent for top positions.
"The recruitment areas in the banking sector that have shown to be particularly competitive is risk management and loan collection," Anh said.
