Businesses crave labor
At Suoi Dau Industrial Park, recruitment notices are hung all over the gates of many factories, from general workers to technicians. "We have orders, have factories, but lack people to operate, we advertise many jobs but submit very few applications. Currently, the Company needs about 200 workers but only about 10-15 applications," said a representative of Thong Nhat Swimwear Garment Co., Ltd.
Mr. Vo Son - Deputy Director of French-style Women's Costume Development Co., Ltd. (FLD) - informed: The enterprise has more than 400 employees, orders are maintained until the end of the year and are expected for the whole year 2027. However, to expand production, 100 more unskilled workers are needed, but only 5-10 applications are received each month.
At Du Long Industrial Park, Trilink Vietnam Garment Co., Ltd. was established in March 2026, currently has nearly 130 employees, while the expected scale is 400-600 people.
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Tam Nhu - Chairwoman of the Company's Trade Union, the enterprise urgently needs 200 skilled garment workers with an income of 7-15 million VND/month and welfare benefits, but very few applications.
Similarly, seafood processing enterprises also face difficulties. Mr. Nguyen Van Du - Director of Vietnam Tuna Co., Ltd. shared that the enterprise has 5 factories, currently lacking about 500 workers. The enterprise has established recruitment and training centers, directly going to localities to connect recruitment but still does not meet the demand.
With technical and high-quality labor, the problem is even more difficult. According to Mr. Tran Dai Duong - Director of Khanh Hoa Employment Service Center - in the second quarter of 2026, the Labor Supply and Demand Survey Center at job information channels with 886 businesses; recruitment demand is 1,559 job positions with a recruitment volume of 20,283 workers and 9,946 workers looking for jobs.
Demand is mainly concentrated in the processing and manufacturing industry. General labor accounts for the majority, labor with university and postgraduate degrees accounts for 13.41%, concentrated in construction, education - training, professional activities, science and technology.
Mr. Duong acknowledged that the labor market is still limited due to unstable labor movements between sectors, labor fluctuations are still common due to personal factors and job characteristics.
Training has not kept up with demand
The reason for the above problems is partly due to the training system still having many shortcomings. Dr. Quach Hoai Nam - Rector of Nha Trang University said that although it is a human resource training center for the aquaculture industry, there were times when the school could not recruit students. Meanwhile, students of the aquaculture industry find it difficult to find jobs after graduation, even food processing students switch to business products. This shows that some training industries have not kept up with actual needs.
Khanh Hoa University aims to have at least 30% of lecturers with doctoral degrees by 2030, of which 15% have the academic title of associate professor. However, the locality has a policy of reducing the number of people working annually.
Dr. Phan Phien - Rector of Khanh Hoa University - said that the school has not been granted autonomy in recruiting lecturers, limiting the ability to promptly attract a high-level team to expand scale and improve training quality. Reducing the number of employees annually also leads to a reduction in the number of lecturers, directly affecting the ability to maintain and develop training.
According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Ha - Vice Chairman of Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee, the strong development of transportation, urban, tourism, industry and energy infrastructure is creating a foundation for forming a modern labor force. However, the quality of human resources has not kept up with the development speed and requirements of new economic sectors.
In fact, there is still a situation of "dismatch" between training and market demand. Many businesses lack skilled workers with high skills and techniques, while a part of workers lack career orientation or do not meet production requirements. The link between training institutions and businesses is not close, and career guidance work from early on also needs to be invested more. "Khanh Hoa does not avoid those limitations. We see this as a "bottleneck" that needs to be removed soon if we want to switch to a growth model based on knowledge, technology and innovation," Mr. Ha emphasized.
