Seventy percent of businesses would focus on re-educating and training their workforce in new skills needed on the job, said a human resources survey.
According to the survey conducted in 605 businesses by recruitment company Talentnet and its global counterpart Mercer last year, 20 percent of respondents were looking to recruit more workers this year.

These were firms in fields like finance, banking, insurance and construction, Tieu Yen Trinh, general director of Talentnet, said at a recent human resource management conference.

Southern Vietnam currently lacks healthcare and pharmacy personnel, while northern Vietnam has increasing demand for workers in high-tech and IT fields because more and more businesses were expanding operations in the region, Trinh said.

Only 10 percent of surveyed businesses said they would consider laying off employees. Most of these were in fields heavily impacted by the pandemic, like restaurants, hotels and transport companies, the survey found.

Dao Ngoc Thang, head of the foreign exchange department under the corporate sales group of HSBC Vietnam, said personnel shortage was a common issue for both Vietnamese and foreign companies in certain sectors, with or without the pandemic.

The digital transformation trend in recent times has also boosted demand for workers in the digital and commercial fields, he said.

“The five fields with the most personnel shortage this year are real estate, finance-banking, production, business, IT and other tech-related fields,” he said.

This shortage has spurred many businesses to invest into programs to attract and retain high-quality talents, as well as re-evaluate the roles of each division to determine the costs and benefits before investing in human resource development, he added.

Seventy percent of businesses would focus on re-educating and training their workforce in new skills needed on the job, said the survey.

Trinh said how companies should pay their employees during the pandemic was a tough question. Vietnamese businesses need to change their compensation strategies to attract and retain more talents.

Vietnamese companies usually pay their workers about 23 percent less than foreign-invested firms, he noted, adding that the pay gap only widens as one moves up the career ladder, with managers seeing pay gaps as wide as 31 percent.