More than 220,000 more workers may be needed
On August 28, Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee coordinated with Lao Dong Newspaper to organize the Workshop "Building Human Resources - Key to Bringing Khanh Hoa to Sustainable Development".
According to the organizers, in the context of strong economic shift, developing high-quality human resources has become an urgent requirement for Khanh Hoa to meet growth pillars such as industry, energy, tourism - services and urban - construction.
The Department of Education and Training said that in 2025, the whole province has more than 1.56 million people participating in economic activities. Trained labor reached 81%, equivalent to more than 1.26 million people. However, labor with degrees and certificates only reached 32.8%, with more than 513,000 people.
Notably, more than 754,500 technical workers do not have degrees or certificates, accounting for 48.2% of trained workers. This is a large gap as the economy is shifting towards increasing the content of technology, services and added value.
The network of higher education and vocational education institutions is quite diverse, but the training structure is not completely close to business needs. Some new, high-tech industries still lack human resources, while a part of the labor force is not fully equipped with skills to meet new requirements.
According to the Department of Home Affairs, Khanh Hoa is entering a new stage of development with key areas such as industry, energy, tourism - services, logistics, marine economy, urban - construction, digital economy and high technology.
Calculations based on the job elasticity coefficient and GRDP show that, with a coefficient of 0.30, the number of workers by 2030 may reach 1.204 million people, an increase of about 188,300 people. In the basic scenario with a coefficient of 0.35, the demand is about 1.238 million people, an increase of more than 222,200 people. With a coefficient of 0.40, the number of workers may reach 1.272 million people, an increase of nearly 257,000 people.
By 2030, the proportion of agricultural labor is expected to decrease to about 20%, meaning about 80% of labor belongs to the non-agricultural sector. Meanwhile, the digital economy is aimed at contributing 35% of GRDP.
Therefore, Khanh Hoa not only needs to supplement labor but also must focus on technical training, management, foreign languages, logistics, digital technology and data analysis, meeting the requirements of developing key economic sectors.
Training must go ahead of development needs
At the workshop, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Quang Tuan - Vice President of the Vietnam Economic Science Association - shared that Khanh Hoa is planning for a different quality economy, so it cannot continue to operate with the old human resource structure.
According to him, with total social investment capital estimated at about 1,050,000 billion VND, the province needs to simultaneously improve capital absorption capacity and human resource quality. Skill upgrading, retraining and selectively attracting human resources need to be implemented in parallel with the investment attraction process.
In particular, the demand of nearly 3,900 personnel serving nuclear power plants requires the province to prepare early, from training and attracting experts to building a high-level technical team.
And People's Teacher, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ho Thanh Phong, said that Khanh Hoa needs to strengthen the "State - School - Business" linkage. Businesses need to deeply participate in building programs, organizing training and recruitment, instead of just receiving workers after graduation.
Dr. Le Thi Thu Hien emphasized the requirement to develop human resources capable of mastering technology, data and artificial intelligence, thereby improving the productivity and competitiveness of businesses.
Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Thanh Ha assessed that Khanh Hoa needs to create breakthroughs in human resource development policies, strengthen labor demand forecasting, innovate training and attract high-quality human resources.
The Department of Home Affairs proposes to build an annual human resource supply-demand balance forecasting system and the "Khanh Hoa Labor Supply-Demand and Skills Shortage Map". Along with new training, the province needs to promote retraining and improve skills for the existing labor force, especially technical workers who do not have degrees or certificates.
In the period towards double-digit growth, human resources will determine Khanh Hoa's ability to absorb investment and improve productivity. Therefore, the province needs to shift from "training what can be trained" to "training what the economy will need", so that human resources become a driving force for rapid and sustainable development.
The organizing committee would like to thank the sponsors for accompanying the Workshop "Building human resources - Key to bringing Khanh Hoa to sustainable development".
