Vietnam currently has about 500,000 experts and employees working overseas. This workforce sends back to Vietnam a total of US $1.7 billion annually.
According to Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, head of the Department of Overseas Labour Management (DOLM) under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam has supplied the world with nearly 620,000 workers and experts overseas since 2001. 500,000 of those are still currently working in over 40 countries and territories collectively in the world. About half of these are trained labourers.
Prior to that, from 1980 to 1990, Vietnam sent about 300,000 workers and experts overseas, mainly to Eastern European and African countries. From 1991 to 1995, Vietnam had about 25,000 labourers working abroad and over 96,000 people in the period from 1996 to 2000.
Vietnam aims to send about 85,000 workers overseas in 2010. In order to achieve this goal, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ will mainly target markets such as the Middle East, Taiwan (China), Malaysia, Japan and Korea.
