Employees at work at a face mask plant. Enterprises’ hiring intentions remained positive in the second half of the year - PHOTO: VNA

HCMC - Employers in various sectors in Vietnam are expecting hiring to recover in the second half of this year despite the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest survey of the ManpowerGroup Vietnam Research Team and the National Employment Services Center under the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The Vietnam Employment Outlook survey, conducted on 152 employers in 17 sectors, showed that nearly 64% of the respondents were affected by the pandemic from mild to severe levels, while over 36% remained unaffected.

According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam achieved a 5.64% GDP growth in the first half of 2021, higher than the 1.82% in the same period last year. Of which, the manufacturing and processing sector is among the key drivers of the economy, contributing 2.9% to the economic growth rate.

Although the overall economic outlook looks positive, employers seem less confident of recruiting in the second half. More than 80% of the surveyed enterprises plan to increase or maintain the current headcounts as compared with 93% of the equivalent index in the first two quarters. About one fifth of the respondents announced plans to trim hiring activities.

Nguyen Thu Trang, country head of Permanent Recruitment and Executive Search Services at ManpowerGroup Vietnam, shared that there has been an increase in permanent recruitment and executive search, especially in IT, electronics, energy and high technology. Given that the labor market is facing a scarcity of skills, senior IT and business transformation roles are particularly hard to fill.

Moreover, under the global impact of the pandemic and technological revolution, the job market is seeing a demand for positions that require digital skills, such as those in the finance and banking sector.

Despite the impact of the pandemic, employment activities are on the road to recovery. Up to 40% of employers expect their hiring plans to increase in the next three months, followed by over 24% foreseeing the same in the next six months. The strongest recruitment plans were reported in manufacturing and processing, wholesale, retail and trading, information and communications technology, education and training, construction and professional consulting services.

Le Thi Kim, head of Staffing and Outsourcing Services in the north at ManpowerGroup Vietnam, said since the beginning of the pandemic, the domestic labor market has been witnessing an increase in the relocation of factories from overseas to Vietnam. This means that more job opportunities are being created for the local workforce.

To keep employees safe while maintaining business activities, the surveyed employers also revealed their plans to apply multiple working options in the next three to six months. A quarter of the enterprises want to retain an absolute workplace-based model, over 41% plan to implement the hybrid work mode and nearly 22% are choosing flexible shift patterns. Just about 9% of the employers are aiming to arrange for their employees to work from home full-time.