International briefing 18: training and development in Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam provides a typical case of an emerging economy, which has attempted to develop the country and join the world economic mainstream with a highly agricultural base, large and young labour force, and a dynamically growing private sector. After a long period of quantitative growth, it is now focusing on achieving quality of development, with a view to balance economic growth and quality of life improvement for its population. Education has been chosen to be the key plank in the successful implementation of this strategy. This article reviews the general socio-economic background of the country, the high need for skilled labour, the structure of its educational system, the pitfalls at the high education level, and its strategy to overhaul the whole system in order to ensure quality from the input phase of the development process.

The transfer of training and development practices in Japanese subsidiaries in Vietnam

“…; Thang and Buyens ). While most Vietnamese organisations are also aware of the link between training and development and business success, they often lack the necessary monetary resources to implement adequate training initiatives (Thang and Quang ). This leaves employees with little option but to seek self‐development through vocational schools, colleges or universities, which often fail to meet either world quality standards or the specific needs of industry; an issue that is much more pronounced in SMEs and SOEs (Friedman ).…”

“…Research by King‐Kauanui, Ngoc and Ashley‐Cotleur () on training initiatives in 200 Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs determined that while most provided employees with some form of training, this was largely informal and limited in terms of financial investment, the number of training hours and the amount of training expenditure per employee. These outcomes are due to the absence of an HR department and HRM specialists and limited internal resources within SMEs (Thang and Quang ).…”

Training and labour needs of young workers in Vietnamese organisations

“…Research findings, although appearing more frequently in journals (see Ying, 2002;Jenkins, 2004;Truong and Quang, 2007;Thang and Quang, 2007;Clarke et al, 2007) remain fairly limited. In addition there are still are few official opportunities for academics and researchers from outside of Vietnam to undertake detailed research on training and employment given the complexities of language, access and the intertwining of employers, trade unions, employer groups and the Vietnamese Communist Party.…”

“…As part of Doi Moi an "open door" (Thang and Quang, 2007) policy was pursued to attempt to increase the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) coming into the national economy and this saw an increase in the number of non-state owned enterprises and this survey has managed to capture the opinions of around 35 foreign owned enterprises in Vietnam. The 1987 FDI Law of Vietnam provided a legal basis for the introduction of foreign ownership in the Vietnamese economy and the amount of FDI in Vietnam has risen from almost zero in 1987 to US$3.2 billion in 1997 and, after a drop associated with the Asian financial crisis, to a little under US$6 billion by 2005 (Thang and Quang, 2007).…”

“…The numbers of young people in higher education (1.4 million) and vocational training (half a million) are not insignificant (Thang and Quang, 2007) and The government has launched HR schemes (with US$20.7 million of funds between 2004 and 2011) aimed at increasing the skills level of its graduates, particularly in the areas of management, business and technology to try and bridge the perceived skills gaps (Gross and Weintraub, 2005). Nonetheless in their 2007 international briefing Thang and Quang (2007) found that the Vietnamese labour supply "remains relatively abundant and inexpensive but many companies are faced with a chronic shortage of skilled workers" (p. 144). With the money that has been spent since the Quang and Dung (1998) study and the MOET (2001) report this survey comes at a useful time to test the impact of that spending.…”