Human resource training must change thinking from qualifications to careers
At a working session with the internal affairs sector on the quality of Vietnam's labor force on July 8, General Secretary and President To Lam emphasized that the current bottleneck is not the lack of labor in quantity, but mainly the lack of labor suitable for development requirements; lack of vocational skills, discipline, industrial style, foreign languages, digital skills, green skills; lack of skilled technicians and workers, practical human resources, technology human resources, intermediate management human resources. Informal labor is still large, youth unemployment is still high, training and employment structures are still skewed, and population aging is happening rapidly.
The assessment of labor quality must shift from valuing quantity to valuing quality, efficiency of use and ability to contribute to labor productivity. Not only asking how many people have jobs, but also asking whether those jobs are formal, sustainable, productive and have high value; whether workers have skills, income, insurance, lifelong learning opportunities and career change. The final measure is job quality, human resource quality and the contribution of workers to national competitiveness.
General Secretary and President clearly stated that human resource training must shift from meeting immediate needs to preparing the nation's long-term competitiveness. The focus is on changing thinking from "diplomacy" to "profession", from training according to available capabilities to training according to orders, according to skill standards and according to output results.
According to the Department of Employment (Ministry of Home Affairs), the rate of trained workers with degrees and certificates reached about 29.2% in 2025, an increase compared to 15.6% in 2011, but there are still more than 70% of the labor force without professional qualifications and technical certificates, equivalent to about 38 million people without training.
According to the report, in 2025, the labor productivity of the entire economy is estimated to reach 245 million VND/laborer, equivalent to about 9,809 USD/laborer. The average labor productivity growth rate in the period 2021-2025 reached 5.17%/year, lower than the previous period.
By the second quarter of 2026, the rate of trained workers with degrees and certificates reached 29.8%, 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous quarter and 0.7 percentage points higher than the same period last year.
Breakthrough to escape the advantage of cheap labor
Faced with the rapid development requirements of science, technology and digital transformation, vocational education faces pressure to innovate training programs and change thinking on human resource development. The quality of human resources, scientific and technological capacity, and innovation ecosystems become decisive factors in the competitiveness of each locality.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, National Assembly Deputy of the XV term Pham Trong Nghia emphasized that it is necessary to build a strategy to improve the value of Vietnamese labor and gradually say no to cheap labor. The important issue is to move from a period of "golden" population in quantity to "golden" in quality and there must be comprehensive and comprehensive solutions.
According to Mr. Pham Trong Nghia, it is necessary to strengthen the leading role of enterprises in human resource development and improving labor productivity. It is necessary to take enterprises as the center in training human resource quality, in which there must be pioneering enterprises playing the role of "leaders", directly participating in the training process.
At the same time, it is necessary to build capacity frameworks for businesses to participate in training in a systematic way, closerly linking training and the actual needs of the labor market.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Huu Quynh - Vice Rector of CMC University - clearly stated that the parallel training model is changing compared to before. If previously, businesses mainly participated in the stage of student internships after completing the study program, now they have accompanied them right from the process of building the program, organizing training to evaluating learning results. This approach helps the training process become closer to the practical requirements of businesses.
In the process of innovating training methods, the school focuses on increasing the initiative of learners through the application of technology and new teaching methods, while focusing on training in a number of technology fields according to human resource development needs. The core point is that businesses participate throughout the training process, from building programs, learning materials to coordinating teaching organization, receiving students studying in a real working environment, jointly evaluating results and participating in recruitment after graduation.
