EPZ, IP firms to fall short of 23,000 workers
By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – Companies at HCMC’s export processing zones (EPZ) and industrial parks (IP) will fall short of a combined 23,000 workers, said a job placement official.
Nguyen Thanh Tung, head of the Job Center of the HCMC Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), told the Daily on Monday that the enterprises would need 49,000 new workers this year for their new export orders and production expansion plans.
However, Tung added, his center and others around the city would be able to supply only 26,000 workers, leading to a shortage of 23,000.
“Given a recovery of production, producers are in need of more workers, especially unskilled ones,” he said. “But it’s hard for them to employ.”
The sectors where labor demand is the strongest include packaging, garment, electronics, mechanical engineering and foodstuff production. Garment makers alone want 6,000 new workers, electronics enterprises about 2,500 and mechanical engineering firms around 2,500.
“From now to the year-end, our job center could find only 5,000 more workers,” said Tung of the Hepza job center. The center, he noted, will intensify recruitments from vocational schools around the city and from other provinces.
Tung said almost all enterprises at the EPZs and IPs had raised wages too attract more workers. The average monthly wage is some VND2.5 million, VND500,000 higher than before.
Hepza began last year to give priority to new projects that use modern production technologies, particularly those in the mechanical engineering and electronics sectors, to reduce the heavy reliance on unskilled labor and thus avoid shortages of such labor.
But the city is developing seven new IPs and expanding some operational IPs with a total area of about 3,000 hectares, so the labor shortage is seen intenser in the coming time.
The city now has three EPZs and 10 IPs, which are home to 1,200 enterprises employing 252,000 workers.