The report on the labor and employment situation in the second quarter and the first 6 months of 2025 by the Statistical Office shows that the unemployment rate among young people aged 15 - 24 in the second quarter of 2025 is 8.19%. The unemployment rate of young people in urban areas is 10.23%, 3.17 percentage points higher than in rural areas.
Notably, in the second quarter of this year, the whole country still had about 1.35 million young people aged 15-24 who were unemployed and did not participate in studying and training.
According to Mr. Vu Quang Thanh, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Employment Service Center, there are many reasons why young workers have difficulty finding jobs in the current labor market.
Most of the young graduates lack practical work experience in the industry or position they are interested in while businesses want to recruit candidates with work experience. In Hanoi, up to 50% of the vacant positions in July required workers to have 2 years or more of experience.
"Young workers are also competitive from experienced and skilled workers. Not to mention, many businesses have high requirements for degrees and certificates. This is a barrier for young workers who have just graduated or do not have the conditions to study or are not skilled, said Mr. Vu Quang Thanh.
Discussing the barriers that young people face when participating in the labor market, Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong - former Director of the Institute of Social Labor Science analyzed that the main reason why many young people find it difficult to ask for, or even cannot find a job is lack of qualifications and skills.
Many people who are retrained are only theoretical and have never participated in internships; the group of people who are not trained and do not have any professional qualifications makes job opportunities increasingly difficult. Not to mention, for both groups, soft skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking... are still very limited, said Ms. Huong.
According to Ms. Huong, many young workers lack a clear career orientation, even choosing jobs according to trends or family expectations. This situation occurs in both the group of workers with qualified capacity and the group that has not been trained. "This is waste and it is necessary for the authorities to orient development, avoid creating unnecessary waste, especially in the group with qualifications, who can study well and go to the destination," Ms. Huong emphasized.
Sharing the same view, Mr. Vu Quang Thanh said that digital transformation makes the labor market more complex, requiring technological skills and high adaptability. Training workers need to proactively equip themselves with soft skills, the ability to apply technology and the ability to adapt to the digital working environment. People without skills, if they do not take the trouble to study and improve their qualifications, will be the ones who are easily "dethroned" from the labor market.
