For many years, Vietnam has taken advantage of abundant labor and competitive labor costs to attract investment and develop processing, assembly and export industries.
That model once created millions of jobs, contributing to rapid economic growth.
However, in the current context, those advantages are gradually narrowing.
As wages increase, automation develops strongly and other countries also compete with cheap labor, a growth model mainly based on simple labor will be difficult to create a new breakthrough.
If only continuing to do stages with low added value, Vietnam is very likely to fall into the vicious circle of low productivity and low income.
Therefore, the requirement to switch to creative labor is the choice of the development path of the Vietnamese economy in the new period.
One noteworthy point in Conclusion Notice No. 134-TB/VPTW is that the concept of "creative labor" is understood in a very broad sense, not simply the work of scientists or high-tech engineers.
A farmer who knows how to use digital technology to manage crops, a worker who owns an automatic production line, a business that continuously improves products, or an official who changes the way they serve people to solve work faster... all are manifestations of creative labor.
In other words, creativity must therefore become a capacity that is awakened and promoted in all classes and fields of society.
Of course, shifting from simple labor to creative labor cannot happen with just calls.
We cannot require workers to be creative if businesses still mainly use old technology and consider training as a cost instead of investment.
We also cannot expect workers to master technology if they are not trained and updated with skills regularly.
As well as not being able to expect farmers to apply modern technology without digital infrastructure, lack of capital and lack of support services...
To have creative labor in a broad sense, we must synchronously change many things.
To form a creative labor force, it is necessary to simultaneously innovate education, vocational training, retraining in enterprises and build mechanisms for workers to study lifelong. Schools must link training with market needs; enterprises must participate in training and create an environment for workers to improve and be creative in their work.
Creative labor must also be measured by results. For workers, it can be higher productivity, innovation, equipment mastery; for businesses, it is new products, new technologies and higher added value. Creativity only truly becomes a source of development when it is transformed into products, productivity and efficiency.
To become a developed country, Vietnam cannot forever rely on the advantage of cheap labor.
That advantage may help grow for a period, but is not enough to bring the economy to higher levels of the global value chain.
When workers create more value with knowledge, skills and creativity, that is when labor productivity is sustainably improved, businesses have higher competitiveness and people's incomes are substantially improved.
That is the most solid foundation for the rapid and sustainable development of the country.
