Problems in the labor market
The context of economic shift requires a leap in human resources quality, however, the internal strengths of the economy, including human resources, are under great pressure from the strict requirements of the global value chain.
Mr. Le Quang Trung - former Deputy Director in charge of the Department of Employment, said that the Vietnamese labor market is experiencing a "double contradiction": both a surplus of unskilled labor and a serious shortage of high-quality human resources.
On the one hand, the wave of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) is threatening millions of processing and assembly workers in traditional industries such as textiles, garments, footwear, and processing. On the other hand, multinational corporations and technology businesses when investing in Vietnam are struggling to find semiconductor engineers, AI experts, big data (Big Data) or supply chain management personnel that meet international standards," Mr. Trung said.
Sharing the same view, Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong - former Director of the Institute of Labor and Social Sciences cited the report on the labor and employment situation in the second quarter of 2026 issued by the Department of Statistics: The rate of trained workers with degrees and certificates in the second quarter of 2026 is 29.8%; in general, in the first 6 months of 2026, the rate of trained workers with degrees and certificates nationwide is 29.7%.
Ms. Huong believes that the current human resource situation clearly reflects the inadequacies that have accumulated over the years. The first is that the proportion of workers with degrees and certificates is still limited. More than 70% of the labor force mainly grew up through actual work, lacking soft skills, foreign languages and digital skills to adapt to the modern working environment.
The second is the situation of "too many teachers, not enough workers". The psychology of preferring university degrees still weighs heavily on society, creating the phenomenon of bachelors and masters graduating and working in the wrong field or unemployed, while manufacturing enterprises are falling into a crisis of shortage of skilled workers and intermediate technicians.
Third, training is out of sync with actual needs. Higher education and vocational training institutions still mainly "sell what they have" instead of "providing what the market needs". The curriculum is slow to update new technology trends, causing businesses after recruitment to often spend costs and time retraining from the beginning.
Improving labor productivity - the only way to maintain national competitive advantage
Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong said that the labor supply-demand mismatch not only comes from the training system but also stems from bottlenecks in state management and policy planning.
Among them, the most prominent is the passive forecasting of the labor market. The information and forecasting system of labor demand is not timely, lacking big data to provide medium and long-term forecast scenarios for each industry and each economic region.
In addition, career guidance and stratification are not effective. Career guidance at the general education level is still formalistic, not helping students correctly understand their abilities and career trends of the future.
Finally, the "3 houses" linkage is fragmented when the connection between the State - school - business does not have a binding mechanism and clear economic benefits. Businesses rarely participate deeply in building curricula, ordering training or supporting practical facilities for schools.
Assessing the strategic problem of improving national labor productivity, Mr. Le Quang Trung emphasized: "Improving labor productivity is the only way for Vietnam to overcome the middle-income trap and maintain national competitive advantage. If labor force restructuring is not carried out quickly, the golden population advantage will be wasted.
According to Mr. Le Quang Trung, improving labor productivity is not simply forcing workers to increase working hours, but improving the labor quality index through skills, technology and management thinking.
Therefore, human resource policies in the new period require a breakthrough. Mr. Trung said that to solve the human resource problem in the new era, Vietnam needs to implement fundamental and synchronous solutions.
Innovating forecasting policies and labor data through building a national database on the AI-applied labor market, helping to connect real-time between the recruitment needs of businesses and the training scale of schools.
Build a special mechanism for the "3 houses" model when introducing preferential policies on taxes and land for businesses when they invest directly in training institutions, receive interns or sign labor order contracts.
Modernize vocational education to focus national resources on developing high-quality vocational schools, standardizing vocational skill standards that are close to ASEAN and world standards.
Develop lifelong learning policies, encourage workers to self-update digital skills and green skills through learning support funds and short-term certificates from businesses.
