Many businesses in Ho Chi Minh City and other southern provinces have started planning to reopen. However, with the large number of workers returning home before movement activities are controlled, it becomes difficult to rearrange personnel and labor at the enterprises.

Many businesses need labor resources to resume production
and business activities. Photo: Le Huong

Workers have to take a break

Speaking at the online seminar "Human resources for Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces after the pandemic" held on the afternoon of October 1, evaluating the labor market in Ho Chi Minh City, Mr. Le Minh Tan, Director of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Ho Chi Minh City, said there are more than 470,000 businesses registered in Ho Chi Minh City, of which over 15,000 FDI enterprises with over 3.2 million workers.

But in the past five months, only 70 enterprises operated the "three on-site" model with 600,000 employees, while 1.7 million employees had to temporarily stop working and were unpaid.

In Ho Chi Minh City, small and medium enterprises account for 98% of companies, so the number of employees is greatly affected, especially in the garment, footwear, trade services, and transportation industries.

Most businesses go bankrupt. Regarding labor supply, in the past five months, the rate of employees taking leave from work to enjoy unemployment insurance is about over 100,000 people and 500,000 employees taking leave from work.

“In order to produce safely, it must ensure 32 criteria in the set of criteria of Ho Chi Minh City as well as recommendations of the Ministry of Health. Ho Chi Minh City is divided into three phases for economic recovery with a very cautious spirit. Accordingly, a few businesses implement the "three on the spot", "one road, two destinations" or "four green" options, while the rest have to stop production and temporarily give workers a break.”

Mr. Phan Ky Quan Triet, Deputy Director of the Center for Forecasting Human Needs and Labor Market Information in Ho Chi Minh City, said that many other businesses have started planning to resume operations. It is expected that human resource demand in the fourth quarter of 2021 needs about 43,654 - 56,869 jobs, human resource demand tends to increase in part-time workers.

However, with the large number of workers returning to their hometown before movement activities are controlled, the rearrangement of personnel and labor at the enterprise is an important issue.

High demand in fourth quarter

According to Mr. Phan Ky Quan Triet, despite many difficulties, to maintain operations, enterprises have actively planned to recruit new personnel and contacted former staff who are on leave, designed many preferential regimes and favorable conditions to attract employees to return to work.

In addition, with efforts to control the pandemic, strengthen vaccination against Covid-19, along with the support of the City in preparing a plan to welcome workers in provinces/cities, it is expected that the demand for labor recruitment in the last months of 2021 will be more positive, it is expected that the city's labor market will gradually recover and prosper again, although there are still many difficulties.

Having the same fear, according to Mr. Pham Van Tuyen, Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Binh Duong province, it is forecasted that Binh Duong may lack 40,000-50,000 workers. Binh Duong currently has about 1.2 million employees at about 50,000 enterprises. There were only about 3,500 "three-in-place" businesses with about 250,000 people, so about 750,000 people had to stop working.

In order to supply labor for enterprises to restore production, Binh Duong province has implemented many solutions. That is the good implementation of social security work that Binh Duong has done in recent years. In the near future, Binh Duong will continue to support about 300,000 people affected by the pandemic. This is a solution to ensure the life of workers in the current difficult conditions, helping them to connect with businesses and the locality.

“In addition, when enterprises start operating, the province will implement Resolution 68 on support for training and retraining of skills for workers. At the same time, it directs the Employment Service Center to closely connect with enterprises to connect workers to quickly find jobs and solve human resource problems for businesses. When the pandemic is controlled and traffic is connected, the province will connect with other provinces and cities to regulate labor supply and demand between localities, ensuring employment for workers," said Pham Van Tuyen.