Sustainable solutions for blue-collar recruitment strategy
On 24 June, 2024, the signing ceremony of cooperation between Viec Lam Tot (Cho Tot) and ManpowerGroup Vietnam on providing sustainable and meaningful jobs for workers was held in HCMC. At the event, the two parties’ representatives discussed the recruitment challenges faced by businesses currently.
The labor market is more and more competitive
Ms. Nguyen Thanh Huong, Country People and Culture Manager, ManpowerGroup Vietnam said that from ManpowerGroup Vietnam’s observations as well as recruitment orders received since the beginning of the year, the demand for recruiting laborers in the Southern region has increased and shown many positive signs.
In the first six months of 2024, the recruitment demands of ManpowerGroup Vietnam's partners in the manufacturing sector increased by at least 20% compared to the same period last year, most significantly in areas such as Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Cu Chi, and District 9 in Ho Chi Minh City.
"In particular, some businesses in the e-commerce and logistics sectors are planning to increase the recruitment headcounts by four times from now until the end of the year. In fact, their hiring demand has been increasing steadily by 10–20% per month in the first half of 2024," said Ms. Nguyen Thanh Huong.
The increased demand makes the recruitment market more competitive. As shared by Ms. Nguyen Thanh Huong, in the second quarter of 2024, the whole country had nearly 59.9 thousand newly established and resuming businesses, an increase of 5.1% over the same period in 2023. On average, there are nearly 20 thousand newly established and resuming businesses per month. Meanwhile, workers now have many employment options.
“Due to the various challenges such as the dependence on business orders, the struggle to manage labor costs in the context of a gloomy world economy, or rising raw material prices, etc., more and more businesses are recruiting workers for contingent/part-time positions via staffing & outsourcing solutions. Meanwhile, Vietnamese workers are often not interested in such positions, considering them as unstable.
Therefore, businesses have difficulty accessing laborers, especially those in remote areas, where people have limited access to the internet and technology. On the other hand, many businesses have not been successful in building their employer branding, so they are not known to workers and find it difficult to attract them."
In fact, to increase productivity and keep up with the requirements of development and technological application, businesses need skilled, trained workers, but this rate in Vietnam remains low. Businesses that accept to recruit unskilled workers will have to spend more effort and expenses on training.
“One characteristic of laborers is ‘disloyalty’. For example, salary is very important to most of them, so if they notice a little wage differential between two companies, from some tens to hundreds of thousand dong, they are willing to ignore other benefits and immediately apply for the other employer. It is not uncommon for employees to leave after the organization has invested significant time and effort in training them," the ManpowerGroup Vietnam expert admitted.
Building Suitable Policies to Attract Laborers
According to the Country People and Culture Manager of ManpowerGroup Vietnam, the pandemic has caused workers to change their expectations when looking for a job, which pose another challenge.
"In addition to salary and benefits, laborers are now more concerned about the company's treatment, health and safety factors or work-life balance (such as the number of days off per month, or the convenience of traveling to work," said Ms. Huong.
A recent report by Jobs_that_makesense Asia and Manpower Vietnam found that 99% of surveyed Vietnamese workers indicated that having meaning at work was important to them, but only about 11% feel “very satisfied” with the level of purpose in their current role, the lowest rate among Southeast Asian countries. The report also revealed that 49% of respondents are considering a career transition.
In particular, due to the high cost and standard of living in the city, along with the boom of businesses and factories in many provinces and cities, many workers chose to leave big cities and returned to their hometowns to work. Meanwhile, some laborers have switched to jobs with greater freedom and flexibility like online sales, shippers, freelancers, etc.
“Each labor segment will have different needs and desires when searching for meaningful work. Understanding these insights will help businesses develop appropriate policies to attract, recruit, and retain workers, increasing their competitive advantage in the recruitment market,” emphasized the ManpowerGroup Vietnam expert.
According to data from the General Statistics Office, although the number of employed workers has returned to normal growth trends as before the Covid-19 pandemic, the proportion of workers with informal jobs still accounts for a large proportion and has increased over the years. The rate of workers with informal jobs in the first quarter of 2024 was 64.8%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points over the same period last year.
To add in, Ms. Hoang Thi Minh Ngoc, Chief Growth Officer, Cho Tot Co. Ltd., (the owner of Viec Lam Tot - a specialized online job search and recruitment page), also said that according to their statistics, the demand for jobs in the second quarter showed a positive signal when it increased by 17% compared to the first quarter, with an average growth rate of 11% per month in the first half of 2024. However, this platform recorded a decrease in the salary range for laborer positions in the first half of 2024, which was about 7% lower than the same period in 2023.
A Cooperation to Solve Labor Thirst, Provide Sustainable and Meaningful Jobs
By entering this cooperation, Viec Lam Tot (www.vieclamtot.com) - an online job search & recruitment platform, and ManpowerGroup Vietnam - the leading global workforce solutions company, hope to contribute to narrowing the current gap between labor supply and demand by promoting the provision of sustainable, meaningful and reliable job opportunities; providing programs to improve workers’ skills; while providing businesses with an abundant labor source and solving their operational headaches.
Ms. Nguyen Thanh Huong, Country People and Culture Manager, ManpowerGroup Vietnam, said that the cooperation between ManpowerGroup Vietnam and Viec Lam Tot aims to create a positive and effective bridge for Vietnamese workers, especially for laborers, so that they can find better and more meaningful jobs, such as jobs in green sectors.
Source: VnEconomy
