Impressions of innovation and digital transformation
Ho Chi Minh City has had initial successes in implementing Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, such as: entering the Top 100 global innovation ecosystems, operating an international-level innovation center; piloting the commercialization of research results and intellectual property assets, attracting about 80 dossiers and registered products with a total budget of over 500 billion VND; 5G coverage of over 95% of the population; attracting over 1.4 billion USD of foreign direct investment capital into science and technology projects...
From that foundation, Ho Chi Minh City will focus on developing in strategic technology and core technology areas that are the city's strengths such as: Artificial intelligence, blockchain, biotechnology, biomedicine, materials, semiconductor microchips... These industries require very large human resources in the future.
Faced with that requirement, many young people have early outlined a roadmap towards the future. According to Mr. Pham Thai Son - Director of the Enrollment and Communication Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, the group of 17-18 year old candidates is making decisions to calculate for the labor market in the next 4-5 years. They not only look at the current recruitment needs but also ask the question of whether the trained capacity is still valuable by 2030.
This is reflected in the fact that the university entrance scores in 2026 show that AI, computer science, semiconductor, automation, data science... continue to attract high-scoring candidates.
Mr. Truong Huy Toan - Founder and CEO of the HRCV Vietnam job search platform - emphasized that with Ho Chi Minh City continuously announcing many projects on data centers, it will create a very large demand for human resources in the information technology and cloud computing industries, followed by other industry groups such as refrigeration, electrical engineering, automation and technical operations. He predicted that demand will increase sharply in the period from 2026-2030.
Businesses want to find the right people, do the right jobs
From a business perspective, although they are thirsty for high-tech human resources, they also pay great attention to efficiency. Ms. Ngoc Anh - who has worked for many years in a large blockchain company - shared: "We are still continuously recruiting people, but the important thing is not how many people we can recruit, but finding the right people, the right capacity.
Blockchain makers cannot just stop at coding capabilities, but need to master the entire system architecture, security, product development, operation and risk management".
Meanwhile, Mr. Tu Hai Son - Director of Growth of Neurons AI Co., Ltd. - said that the current recruitment demand is mainly focused on information technology and AI, in which AI deployment specialists are the most recruited positions. However, he emphasized that many students still do not know how to apply AI to practical operations.
Semiconductors are also a "hot" industry in Ho Chi Minh City, as the locality has more than 54 projects with a total registered capital of over 5.1 billion USD. The city aims to have 9,000 semiconductor engineers by 2030, and in 2026 alone, the expected target is 3,000 engineers, 300 masters and 40 doctors.
According to experts, for these industry groups, being able to study the right industry is only a part, the most important thing is that these human resources must be able to do the job and meet the requirements when starting to work in reality.
