Half of them said that they need to expand their payroll by 11-20 percent while a quarter was eyeing a 21-30 percent expansion, the survey by HCMC-based recruitment firm Navigos, which polled 354 IT workers and 45 employers, said.

Only 9 percent of surveyed firms did not have any recruitment plans.

Sixty percent of engineers said they were committed to their current companies for one to three years, while 15 percent said they would continue for four years or more.

Dissatisfaction with bonuses and other benefits was the top reason for moving (45 percent), followed by lack of career advancement (40 percent), better job offers (38 percent) and lack of work-life balance (33 percent).

Other reasons were poor relationship with senior manager (22 percent), discontentment with business culture (11 percent) and personal projects (9 percent).  

In terms of salary, employers said experienced engineers were paid more than in other industries, $701-1000 a month compared to $251-700.

The skills needed in IT in the next five years included customer-focus product development, digital transformation thinking and complex problem solving.

Gaku Echizenya, General Director of Navigos Group Vietnam, said: "The demand for high technology has been acknowledged by many sectors and businesses in Vietnam as IT can help a lot in developing applications to help ease jobs in dangerous situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic."

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said at a forum recently that the country needs another 50,000 information-communications technology firms to push its digital transformation.

The country wants to have five billion-dollar tech firms by 2025 and 10 by 2030.