8,500 foreign experts and employees want entry into Vietnam

8,500 foreign experts and employees want to enter Vietnam to resume their work

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has proposed the prime minister to allow 8,459 foreign experts and employees to enter Vietnam in the upcoming time. Upon entry, they would be isolated at a government-supervised facility for 14 days.

As of March 15, basing on the statistics submitted by locals, a total of 8,459 foreign experts and employees were looking to enter Vietnam, 2,000 of whom are working on key projects such as the Cat Linh-Hadong Metro Line (100 people), Vinh Tan 1 thermal power plant (76 people), the LG Display project in Haiphong city (200 people), Samsung Display Vietnam in Bac Ninh province (700 people), and Texhong Co., Ltd. (77 people). Besides, Samsung Electro-Mechanics Vietnam Co., Ltd. and its partner in Thai Nguyen province are waiting for 150 experts and senior employees.

According to Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Le Van Thanh, there were a total of 94,000 foreign employees, licensed and unlicensed, working in Vietnam before the epidemic. At present, 68,521 people are working in Vietnam, 15,310 (22.4 per cent) of whom are Chinese and 23,581 (34.4 per cent) are South Korean.

The number of foreign experts and employees who returned to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday and have yet to return to Vietnam due to the COVID-19 pandemic is 25,479, 19,113 of whom are Chinaese (75 per cent) and 3,766 are South Korean (14.8 per cent). Almost all of them are experts, managers, and skilled personel.

The proposal was made to ease the current shortage of senior human resources who cannot come back to Vietnam due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to enterprises, this shortage cannot be offset by recruiting new human resources because most of the affected positions are of senior employees who have both skill, language skills, as well as management and operating experience. This is the same reason why it is difficult to train alternative employees in a short time.

“If the shortage of experts and senior employees lasts for a long time, it will impact the progress of key national projects and other essential projects. In addition, it will also impact on other positions in the companies,” the document noted.