According to overall data on the situation of university admission registration in 2026 just announced by the Ministry of Education and Training, more than 50% of candidates choose STEM groups (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy - Operations Director, Technical Recruitment Division, Manpower Vietnam - said that although the number of people studying STEM majors is increasing, the shortage of high-quality STEM talents is still a major challenge in Vietnam as well as in the world.
According to the unit's survey, up to 73% of businesses in the technical field face difficulties in finding suitable personnel. The recruitment reality of Manpower Vietnam also shows that many businesses are still struggling to find technical and technological human resources with in-depth expertise, practical experience and meeting job requirements.
According to Ms. Thuy, the skill gap is becoming a bigger problem than the quantity gap. ManpowerGroup's Global Technical Labor Market Report 2026 forecasts that the Asia-Pacific region will lack more than 200,000 semiconductor engineers in the coming years. However, businesses currently need not only people trained in STEM but also personnel with soft skills, adaptability and effective work in a rapidly changing technology environment.
STEM is gradually becoming a necessary condition, while soft skills and the ability to work in a digital environment are sufficient conditions to be valued by businesses," Ms. Thuy said.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong - former Director of the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs (Ministry of Home Affairs) - said that digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are strongly reshaping the labor market. Most sectors of the economy apply AI, automation and big data to improve productivity, while many repetitive jobs such as data entry, manual inspection or production lines are gradually shrinking.
In the opposite direction, the demand for recruiting positions such as data analysis, AI engineers, software development, network security or digital commerce is increasing rapidly. According to Ms. Huong, businesses are increasingly prioritizing workers with digital skills, technology use skills, analytical thinking and soft skills such as communication, adaptation and creativity.
This poses many challenges for workers, especially older workers, rural workers or those with little professional training. Even skilled workers must constantly update knowledge and improve skills to adapt to the development of digital technology and AI," Ms. Huong said.
From this reality, Ms. Thuy believes that solving the STEM human resource problem does not only stop at expanding the training scale but also needs to strengthen the connection between schools and businesses, update training programs according to market needs and equip learners with new competencies such as AI and necessary soft skills.
In addition, it is necessary to expand and diversify STEM human resources. Currently, women account for only about 28% of the global STEM labor force, showing that there is still much room to expand the human resource supply through encouraging women and diverse talent groups to participate in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
According to Ms. Thuy, in the long term, solving the STEM human resource problem is not only training more engineers or technology experts but also building a diverse, integrated and highly adaptable talent ecosystem, creating a foundation for Vietnam to take advantage of opportunities from the wave of investment in AI, semiconductors, high technology and smart manufacturing.
