A study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) with GSO data found that around 40 percent of employed young people had found their jobs by asking friends and family.

Valentina Barcucci, ILO Vietnam’s Labour Economist, said that the higher the education and training attainment of a job seeker, the more likely they are to rely on employment services.

Students learn mechanics at Bach Dang Job Training Centre in Hanoi.

The strengthening of employment services is also important in the context of Vietnam’s role within ASEAN, which the country will chair in 2020.

According to ILO, Vietnam has made an important step in labor market development by ratifying ILO Convention 88, known as the Employment Service Convention. Employment services promote an efficient development, integration and use of the labor force.

To achieve this objective, they serve two groups of direct clients – workers (which they assist to find suitable employment) and employers (which they assist to find suitable workers). Employment services are therefore at the intersection of two networks of information – the one on job applicants and the one on job vacancies.

In a country in transformation like Vietnam, labor market information is a vital source of data on how the labor market is evolving.

Employment services can produce a large set of labor market information through administrative data coming from the profiles of job seekers, occupations in demand by employers and therefore skills needs, duration of job search by the profile of job seeker, hard-to-fill vacancies, and others.

These data all help answer questions such as What skills do employers look for? Do job seekers find jobs that match their qualifications? Who needs to look for jobs for relatively longer periods? What skills are missing – and yet needed - on the labor market?

Convention 88 states that one of the objectives of employment services is to facilitate occupational and geographical mobility. In the context of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025, the chart towards economic and cultural integration, ASEAN envisages increased openness in a number of areas, including the ‘seamless movement’ of skilled labor.

The ILO will also provide continuous assistance on institutional commitments such as formal reporting on the implementation of Convention 88. The Convention on Employment Service became the 22nd ILO Convention Vietnam has ratified.

By the end of 2019, Vietnam also plans to ratify Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining – one of the remaining fundamental conventions – and Convention 159 on Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons).

NA leader pays Tet visit to Tien Giang’s police, medical workers

Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan made a Tet tour of the public security force and doctors and patients at Tien Giang General Hospital in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang on February 4.

 

Free rides for workers in Hai Phong, Ha Nam to return home for Tet

Free rides home were given to workers at Nomura industrial park in An Duong district in the northern port city of Hai Phong on February 2 ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) festival.

 

4,000 free coach tickets handed to poor workers in HCM City

The Federation of Labour of Ho Chi Minh City on January 19 handed free coach tickets and gifts to over 4,000 poor workers in industrial and export-processing zones in the city on the occasion of the coming traditional lunar New Year.

 

Vietnamese company to gift cars to top workers for Tet

A company in the northern Hai Duong Province plans to gift 45 cars and 20 electric scooters to its best employees for Tet.

 

Leading officials visit workers ahead of Tet

Politburo member and permanent member of the Party Central Committee's Secretariat Tran Quoc Vuong on January 6 visited workers at the Ha Phong garments for the export company in the northern province of Bac Giang on the occasion of the coming traditional lunar New Year (Tet), the longest and most important annual festival in Vietnam.

 

Source: VNA