The Institute of State Organization and Labor Science (Ministry of Home Affairs) has just published the Labor Market News for the first quarter of 2025.
The Ministry of Home Affairs' bulletin clearly states the changes in employment by industry in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024.
In the direction of labor decline, the construction industry leads with the number of workers decreasing by 148.5 thousand people; the second place is the processing and manufacturing industry decreasing by 113.3 thousand people;
Next is the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector with a reduced number of 47.2 thousand people. The accommodation and catering service industry has a reduction of 29.4 thousand employees.
Financial, banking and insurance activities have a decrease of 23.6 thousand employees.
On the other hand, the transportation and warehouse industry leads with an increase of 47.8 thousand people. Second place is the education and training sector with an additional 47.2 thousand people.
The wholesale and retail industry; repair of cars, motorbikes, motorbikes and other motor vehicles increased by 29,100 people.
Real estate business activities increased by 20.4 thousand employees. Finally, the field of arts, entertainment and recreation increased by 19 thousand people.
In the first quarter of 2025, it also recorded the 5 industry groups with the largest recruitment demand: wholesale and retail; real estate business activities; production of rubber and plastic products; education and training; computer programming, information technology services.
The 5 groups of jobs with the most recruitment needs are sales staff; customer service staff; sales and management staff; workers in the field of engineering; logistics/transportation.
In the "Summary of the Vietnamese labor market in early 2025", online job platform Vieclam24h pointed out that recently, the world and Vietnamese labor markets have witnessed a wave of continued fires in many businesses, especially in the information technology, finance, media - advertising industries.
A series of large corporations have cut labor to optimize costs, streamline the apparatus and promote the application of technology to improve work efficiency.
At the same time, another paradox appeared: Many businesses are having difficulty recruiting, even falling into a state of serious labor shortage.
At first glance, this situation seems opposite, but in fact this is a result of labor restructuring in the market. The problem is not the absolute shortage or surplus of labor, but the difference between human resource supply and actual recruitment demand.
The cuts mainly take place in areas with excess labor supply, where businesses promote automation and process optimization.
On the contrary, industries such as Logistics and supply chains, processing and manufacturing industry face a shortage of labor, especially highly skilled human resources.
This shows that, instead of simply a matter of supply and demand, the labor market is experiencing a major shift in skills needs and recruitment structure, requiring businesses and workers to have appropriate adaptation strategies.
