It’s more and more difficult to export laborers to other countries, because the importers tend to set higher requirements on Vietnamese laborers’ qualification.

What do the figures talk?

The report on the number of laborers from 63 provinces and cities going abroad in 2009 released by the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs MOLISA showed that most of the exported laborers were from Nghe An province (13.5 percent) and Thanh Hoa (12.3 percent), while Tra Vinh and Lai Chau were the two localities with the lowest percentages of laborers exported (0.001 percent).

In the report, Hanoi ranks the fifth (4.5 percent) and HCM City ranks the third (8.6 percent) among the localities with the biggest numbers of exported laborers.

In principle, the localities, where there are more labor export companies, i.e. the companies which bring Vietnamese laborers to foreign labor markets, would have higher numbers of exported laborers. However, the principle does not come true in Vietnam.

Nghe An province in the central region, only has one labor export company, but it is leading the country in terms of the number of laborers exported. Meanwhile, Hanoi only ranks the fifth in terms of the number of exported laborers, though it has 93 licensed labor export companies, and HCM City ranks the third with just 36 companies.

Also according to MOLISA, the number of expat workers in Vietnam increased to 74,000 just after three years 2008-2010. Of these, a lot of workers have been working illegally in Vietnam, with no work permits.

Meanwhile, under the current laws, the enterprises in Vietnam can only recruit foreign laborers, if Vietnamese workers cannot meet the requirements of the jobs.

Nghe An province has made some records in the labor export field. It has fewest labor export companies in the country, but has the highest number of overseas workers. Especially, it also tops the list of the localities which have laborers escaping their jobs overseas before the labor contract ends.

The only explanation for the problem, according to analysts, is that, the labor export company has promised too many good things for laborers. Later, since the laborers do not receive the things they are promised to give, they have to run away to save their lives.

Take actions

Experts have all pointed out that the labor export markets have been narrowed when the governments of the countries tend to set up stricter requirements on imported laborers.

In order to obtain a job overseas, Vietnamese workers would have to upgrade their qualification and foreign language skills.

The experts believe that the key problem now of Vietnamese workers is the unreasonable education.

It’s not accidental that many foreign companies now tend to decrease the numbers of Vietnamese workers.

Le Van Thanh, Deputy Head of the Overseas Workers Management Agency under MOLISA, said some South Korean companies complained that Vietnamese workers regularly leave for other companies for no legitimate reasons.

Meanwhile, Kim Chong Hyo, Deputy Chair of the South Korean Human Resource Development Agency, said that Vietnamese workers would escape from the current jobs, if they can find other jobs with better pay. Therefore, employers have lost confidence on Vietnamese workers.

Therefore, experts have said that laborers should be provided with not only necessary knowledge, but also the soft skills which help them make right decisions during their works.