Two weeks ago, a cooperation agreement was made to launch the Blockchain Bookshelf, an initiative between the Vietnam Blockchain Association (VBA) and Alpha Books JSC, a Vietnamese publisher of books related to technology, finance, business administration, and skills development.

Blockchain tech is helping workers increase their experience and their pay, Le Toan

At the launch, permanent vice chairman of the VBA Phan Duc Chung said, “The Blockchain Bookshelf will help Vietnamese readers – both those in the position of employers and those unfamiliar with blockchain – to better understand the context of this industry and the story of knowledge dissemination while training personnel to integrate into the digital economy.”

Trung also discussed a plan to find and coordinate with partners in the future, including Vietnam’s National Innovation Centre, to develop future technology training projects to drive forward the country’s digital transformation.

“It is extremely difficult to recruit blockchain human resources. The main reason is expertise. Blockchain is still quite new, and it is not yet available in training programmes at schools and teaching institutions. Currently, everyone has to research and learn by themselves in foreign documents or in the process of working,” Trung said.

According to the VBA, if a country needs 1 per cent of its population to develop new industries, Vietnam needs at least a million workers. However, the current number of workers can only meet 1-2 per cent of the market’s demand.

Blockchain is becoming the trend of the future that has far-reaching applications across many industries. In Vietnam, this technology was first applied in the financial sector and is now being applied in 65 different fields, according to CB Insights statistics in March.

Blockchain is already having a profound impact on the labour and employment sector as more and more businesses use blockchain technology in the recruitment and selection process to drive greater transparency and fairness while also saving time and money, of which Jupviec.vn is an example.

Phan Hong Minh, founder and CEO at Jupviec.vn, said, “Blockchain platform offers a transparent and reliable way for domestic workers to provide reliable information to customers or other parties without complicated requests for paper records or cumbersome procedures with employers, recruiters, or government agencies. Blockchain technology also allows us to develop new products and services in the future.”

Since 2019, Jupviec has cooperated with Infinity Blockchain Labs Co., Ltd to integrate the blockchain platform into Jupviec’s system. This solution has supported over 3,000 customers in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi to evaluate their employers and report any contract violations quickly and efficiently.

Through blockchain-based digital identity information provided by Jupviec, customers can view the work experience, professional certificates, and record of skills training of the domestic workers. This is the basis for customers to feel more secure and can choose the right candidate for their needs. Meanwhile, workers can also use this information to prove their experience with recruitment agencies and are better positioned to bargain for their true value when negotiating salaries and other benefits.

Mai Nguyen, who has been a member of Jupviec.vn for four years, currently has an income of $739-879 per month, which is a high level of income compared to the common level of most unskilled workers. “Blockchain helps our pay increase with our experience, certification, skills, and good customer reviews,” Nguyen said.

Transparency and honesty are also factors that make recruitment agencies and platforms prefer this technology. Le Duy Khanh, founder of the education and career Jobchain platform, said that proving the accuracy of a candidate’s CV is the biggest challenge of job platforms. “Fake certifications and false declarations of experience and skills are all possible risks, affecting recruitment quality and making it difficult for businesses to access quality human resources,” Khanh said.

Jobchain is a job platform combined with an online training model to provide high-quality human resources by using blockchain technology for data authentication.

Meanwhile, many universities in Vietnam are also using blockchain technology for degree management as a solution for anti-fraud and eradication of counterfeiting.

Ho Chi Minh City-based Hoa Sen University became the first Vietnamese university to grant blockchain-based diplomas to all bachelor’s degree courses for the 2019-2020 academic year. Each diploma or certificate incorporates a QR code for employers to look up candidate information. Some other universities in Ho Chi Minh City are also piloting diplomas issued with blockchain technology.

Earlier in 2022, a report by social media recruitment site LinkedIn projected that the hiring demand for blockchain programmers will continue to explode this year. Positions such as engineers and programmers in blockchain alone account for 15.6 per cent of all LinkedIn job openings.

“The existing human resources only meet 15-20 per cent of the recruitment demand,” noted Kevin Tung Nguyen, CEO of career startup JobHopin..