Recruitment demand in Ho Chi Minh City is forecast to continue to increase in 2020, with about 323,000 additional workers needed.

According to the city’s Resources Forecast and Labour Market Information (Falmi) Centre, the city’s demand for trained labourers stands at 85 percent, including 19.8 percent of university graduates.

Businesses are mostly in need of labourers in trade (18.77 percent), services (12.79 percent), transportation (7.11 percent), and electronics - information technology (6.42 percent).

Under a survey conducted by the centre, local businesses are seeking about 81,800 labourers in sales-marketing, services, transportation, consulting services, and after-sales services, in the first quarter of 2020 to serve the lunar New Year festival.

Meanwhile, in the second and third quarters, local enterprises will need about 78,000 – 80,000 workers, mainly skilled ones.

In the fourth quarter, they will have demand to recruit 82,600 labouers, mostly seasonal workers, for production and business activities.

According to Nguyen Van Lam, Vice Director of the municipal Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the development of the labour market in HCM City will focus on improving the quality of human resources in the groups of IT – electronics, mechanics – automation, food technology, e-commerce, logistics, financing-banking-insurance, tourism services – restaurants – hotels, and textiles – footwear.  

Additionally, other sectors such as education, health care and architecture – construction will also need a large number of labourers next year, Lam said.

In the first nine months of 2019, HCM City recorded over 29,600 newly-registered businesses with total capital of 450 trillion VND (19.4 billion USD).

Labour and employment experts said the city’s socio-economic stability has had a positive impact on labour supply and demand.