Vietnam has become an increasingly attractive place for businesses of all types, given the country’s growing consumer class and dynamic workforce.

Vietnam has become an increasingly attractive place for businesses of all types, given the country’s growing consumer class and dynamic workforce, according to the newswire Vietnam Briefing.

Much of Vietnam’s economic growth has come from the movement of people from traditional agriculture to the manufacturing and service industries, in addition to the increased mechanisation of the agriculture sector itself, the newswire wrote in an article published on March 2.

Vietnam is one of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s largest labour markets with approximately 56 million people and a labour participation rate of 76 percent.

However, due to the developing nature of the workforce in the country, there exists some difficulty in finding highly skilled employees because only 12 percent of Vietnam’s workforce are considered highly skilled.

According to Vietnam Briefing, skills and talent shortages are particularly acute in industries such as technology and banking. Vietnam is currently lacking over 70,000 IT workers per year and the government is setting a target of creating a pool of 1.3 million IT workers by 2025.

The US-China trade war has aggravated the existing shortage of quality labour as more companies shift all or part of their manufacturing to Vietnam, particularly for engineers, managers, and software developers.

To solve the challenges within its labour force, the Vietnamese government has announced it will prioritise adapting its industries to a digital future and will improve the accessibility of on-the-job training programmes in these fields. The vocational education system is also working with the private sector to set up training programmes based on the demand of enterprises.

Vietnam’s business climate already encourages innovation and attracts foreign investment, so an enhanced learning ecosystem will allow the country to respond well to the latest technological disruptions, the newswire said./.