Want to be in the loop?
subscribe to
our notification
Business News
HCM CITY TEXTILE, GARMENT AND FOOTWEAR INDUSTRIES FACE LABOUR SHORTAGE
HCM City is facing a serious shortage of labour in the textile and garment and footwear industries since many workers have been moving to others due to low incomes.
Thành Công Textile Garment Investment Trading JSC has been trying to hire workers to expand its production, but is struggling to do it since its salaries and bonuses are not considered high enough.
Nguyễn Hữu Tuấn, its human resource director, was quoted by VnExpress newspaper as saying workers do not consider the textile and garment industry attractive any more.
Many of the company’s workers have switched to other, higher paying jobs, while many are also moving out of the city due to rising expenses, he said.
“Finding new textile and garment workers is very difficult… The lack of workers is preventing factories from reaching their full production capacity. Production lines with new workers are also not productive since they are still inexperienced.”
Phan Thị Minh Thu, deputy director of Vĩnh Phong Footwear Co., Ltd., said the number of workers at its factory has dropped from over 1,000 to 300 in the last two years, and it is also having problems finding replacements.
The business is unable to get new customers since it lacks workers to take in new orders, she said.
Textile and garment and footwear, among Việt Nam’s most labour-intensive industries, are facing labour shortages after COVID amid high demand for goods, with some losing hundreds of workers every year.
In HCM City alone, the two industries have more than 20,000 new vacancies annually but can only find 1,000 in recent years.
Nguyễn Thị Thủy, deputy chairman of the Việt Nam Textile and Garment Labour Union, said businesses are getting plenty of new orders but lack labour, and so could only accept small orders.
Factories are struggling to employ young workers, while existing workers are usually well over 40 and could not find other jobs, she said.
“Businesses have been investing in new technologies to fulfil orders, but skilled staff to operate such machinery are also hard to come by.”
The textile and garment and footwear industries have high export revenues and contribute greatly to the economy, but in recent years universities and colleges have not been churning out enough graduates to meet their demand, she said.
Lê Duy Bình, CEO of economic development agency Economica Việt Nam, said there is a trend of workers leaving the two industries to pursue jobs in other well-paying industries such as electronics and tourism.
They would have to restructure and stop relying on cheap labour like now since that would no longer be available.
The current labour shortage would force them to focus more on production stages with high added value such as raw materials, designing and brand building, he said.
In 2021 HCM City had over 376,000 workers in the two industries, accounting for 13 per cent of the total number in the city.
Source: VNS
Related News
GREEN ECONOMY, DIGITAL ECONOMY BREAKTHROUGH OF VIETNAM-CHINA TIES: PM
Addressing a Hanoi seminar with 19 Chinese groups operating in green economy and digital economy, the leader said the meeting, the first of its kind, aims to materialise high-level perceptions reached by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Party General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping, who agreed to build the Vietnam-China community with a shared future.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE IN ECONOMIC RECOVERY REACHES FIVE-QUARTER HIGH
Vietnam's GDP expanded by a healthy 5.66 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, marking the strongest first-quarter growth since 2020. While slower than the previous quarter's 6.7 per cent growth, this momentum indicates the country is on track to achieve its 2024 economic targets.
THE VIET NAM IMPORT-EXPORT REPORT TO BE RELEASED THURSDAY
In particular, it includes an itemised import and export report, in specific markets and also includes an overview of all State management activities and policy mechanisms related to the import, export market along with details of all the legal documents issued in the year.
TAX AND FEE SUPPORT HINGES ON MPI PROPOSAL APPROVAL
“Business and production activities of enterprises remain in big difficulties. Domestic purchasing power has reduced and people are tightening their belts,” the MPI stated. “Demands in the domestic market are still standing at a low level, while manufacturing and processing enterprises have low competition. These are among the biggest difficulties.”
VIETNAM’S TEXTILE SECTOR BRINGS IN $37 BILLION IN FDI
The foreign-invested enterprises play an important role in the textile and garment sector, contributing 65 per cent to the sector’s total export turnover. Major investors mainly come from South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Among them, South Korea is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam’s textile and garment sector.
FDI FLOWS STRONGLY INTO MANUFACTURING, REAL ESTATE
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), the total FDI disbursed in Vietnam in the first four months of this year reached an estimated 6.28 billion USD, up 7.4 per cent year on year, the highest four-month amount in the past five years.