Lower standards, increase referral fees to recruit workers
Recently, to recruit about 500 more garment workers, Dinsen Vietnam Co., Ltd. (Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City) has offered many attractive allowances such as: Performance 925,000 VND, skills 250,000 - 500,000 VND, child support 150,000 VND/child; 24/7 accident insurance. The company commits to a basic salary of 6.5 million VND/month, income 9.5 - 12 million VND/month; bonus for new employees 4 million VND and referral fee up to 4 million VND.
Freetrend A Company Limited (Linh Trung II Export Processing Zone, Ho Chi Minh City) also has a need to recruit many unskilled workers and other positions such as technical staff, laboratory staff, purchasing staff... Particularly for unskilled workers, the company "lowers the recruitment standards" to only need to know how to read and write.
Ms. Ngo Thi Nga - Chairwoman of the Nha Be Garment Corporation Union (District 7, Ho Chi Minh City) - said that the company needs to recruit more workers to meet orders, but it is currently very difficult to recruit a large number of workers at once, only recruiting a few dozen workers per week.
According to Mr. Huynh Van Choi - Chairman of the Trade Union of Viet Hung Joint Stock Company (District 12, Ho Chi Minh City), the company needs to recruit nearly 200 more workers with a salary of 9 million VND/person/month, an average income of 11 million VND/month, if overtime is up to 2 days/week, 3 hours of overtime per day.
In addition, workers also enjoy many benefits such as bonuses for holidays such as April 30, September 2, Tet, annual vacation and 13th month salary... but for many months, they have not recruited enough workers, and have had to refuse some shirt processing orders.
Many reasons why workers do not go to work
The HCM City Employment Service Center's statistics on the demand for job seekers - jobs looking for people on the HCM City job portal with the criteria of 27 industries and occupations in August 2024 showed that there were 7,591 people looking for jobs and 9,861 jobs looking for people, meaning the number of job seekers is less than the recruitment demand.
Of which, the number of people looking for unskilled labor is 1,963 people, and the demand for unskilled labor is up to 5,433, accounting for 55.1% of the total demand for people. In the leather, footwear and garment industry, there are 959 people looking for jobs, and the demand for people is 1,324 people.
Explaining why many businesses have difficulty recruiting workers, Ms. Nguyen Van Hanh Thuc - Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Employment Service Center - said that after the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers moved from Ho Chi Minh City to the provinces and have not returned.
This is shown through unemployment insurance (UI) settlement data, more than 50% of employees applying for UI benefits are from other provinces coming to Ho Chi Minh City to work.
Besides, the trend of many labor-intensive enterprises is gradually shifting to provinces neighboring Ho Chi Minh City due to cheap labor costs, large premises, suitable for ensuring the working environment.
Some businesses have low salaries and bonuses, unfavorable working conditions, leading to difficulties in recruitment. In addition, many new graduates have almost only theoretical knowledge from books, lack professional skills, experience, and little training in soft skills, so it is difficult to find a job.
“Every year, more than 150,000 people apply for unemployment insurance, but are willing to work in the informal sector such as driving Grab, delivering goods for e-commerce platforms, selling online... without paying social insurance to continue receiving all the months of unemployment insurance benefits (at least 3 months, at most 12 months), and have no need to find a job during the unemployment period. This is also the reason why many businesses have difficulty recruiting workers,” said Ms. Thuc.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai - Deputy General Secretary of Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), Head of VITAS Representative Office in Ho Chi Minh City - said that the salary in the textile and garment industry is not high, many other industries also have many orders, so there is competition for labor.
