Manufacturers face difficulty in recruiting large numbers of workers

Manufacturers resuming operations will find it difficult to re-fill empty positions

In the last months, COVID-19 had a severe toll on production, business activities, and the labour market. Especially in the southern region, the prolonged social distancing according to Directive No.16 and other pandemic prevention directives have greatly disrupted commercial and service activities. In the last months, the spread of COVID-19 continued throughout the country, severely damaging production, business activities, and the labour market.

Despite the limitation of the “three on site” model, energy and manufacturing companies are on top in hiring demand for top-tier project management, quality assurance, and supply chain operation professionals, according to the third quarter of 2021 labor market update by Adecco Vietnam.

Yet they might struggle with high volume hiring. During the prolonged COVID-19 quarantine, countless employees and workers have left industrial zones to return to their hometowns and have not yet or will not return. This happens in various industries that have intensive labour such as garment, textile, footwear, and furniture.

The report shows that the labour market shows a 10 per cent increase in hiring requests, especially in the retail sector. Demand in this sector is 30 per cent higher than in Q3/2020, focusing on senior tech-enabler and e-commerce operation roles. The technology sector, with e-commerce platform, outsourcing, and digital activities, again takes the lead in terms of recruitment volume.

“That means for this time of the year, businesses take things normal and react positively with business continuity planning (BCP). In addition, western markets have been back to normal, which Vietnam as a manufacturing and service hub would benefit from,” said Chuong Nguyen, associate director of Recruitment Business at Adecco Ho Chi Minh City.

Meanwhile, more and more multinational corporations are recruiting new positions in Vietnam, instead of depending on regional or global teams as before. For example, internal audit positions. While in the past, these companies often utilised regional audit teams, lately, many of them have recruited new local-based headcounts for their Vietnam teams.

Predicting the labour situation in the last three months of 2021, Thu Ha Nguyen, director of Adecco Hanoi Office observed that there will be several recruitment scenarios depending on the ability to control the pandemic. However, regardless of the situation, some sectors have been, are, and will continue to thrive even stronger.

“The fact that employees have to work remotely via the internet makes companies increase personnel for the network and database administration department. Plus, cloud storage has been driving the digitisation process at businesses faster than ever. This leads to dramatic growth in the demand for IT engineers soon,” she said.

She also believed that the COVID-19 pandemic has made medical achievements more noticeable. Talents in biomedical engineering, chemistry, biology, and data analysis will continue to be sought after to research solutions to prevent, treat and control diseases. Applied science, automation technology, and AI in manufacturing sectors will also capture great attention and investment to ensure physical distancing in the production environment or at the point of sale.

The report also pointed out that retail and consumer sectors will need more headcounts for the year-end sales, while service companies would face a growing hiring need as they may have lost part of their workforce after months of closing. On the other hand, non-essential consumer goods, food services, tourism, serviced offices, and sectors that require in-person contact (art performance, community events, on-site sales, and cosmetology, among others), will continue to face many challenges.

In the coming months, with the massive coverage of vaccination in big cities, offices will welcome the employees back to work with caution. However, he noted that it may not be the same old office. Instead of having the whole team work on-site, businesses will gradually bring back 30 per cent or 50 per cent of their workforce to the office for the first few months. Thus, recruitment will be back to normal with a “hybrid” setup, which involves both face-to-face and virtual meetings.