VINACHEM

Vietnam will need a skilled workforce to transform itself into an upper-middle-income economy by 2035, the World Bank has suggested in its recently-released report named “Taking Stock: Educate to Grow”.

In its bi-annual report, the lender said: “Vietnam needs a workforce with 21st century skills to grow. As the economy moves from being driven by low skill and low wage jobs in manufacturing and services towards a more innovation driven growth model built on higher value-added industries and services, Vietnam’s workforce will need to attain higher level and more relevant skills.”

The Vietnamese Government’s Socio-economic Development Strategy for 2021-2030 says as much, aiming to use scientific, technological, innovative, and digitally transformative knowledge and build quality human resources as key drivers of higher productivity and future economic growth. To achieve these goals, Vietnam needs to reform its education system to improve quality and access, and thus provide the necessary skills to the population, it affirmed.

This edition also underlines transforming the higher education system as the key to boosting the country’s productivity and achieving its development goals, in the context where the country re-emerges from the pandemic and into a challenging global environment.

The report’s co-author Dorsati Madani said that while Vietnam’s economic recovery had been relatively stable, not all sectors witnessed the same situation.

The impact on workers and households during the crisis was serious and lasting, with about 45% claiming lower incomes in December 2021 than the previous year.

The impact of the pandemic is still present with businesses reporting broad-based labour shortages as of March 2022, which were felt more acutely in services and manufacturing, and in the Ho Chi Minh City area.

This, in addition to growth slowdown or stagflation in main export markets, further commodity price shocks, continued disruption of global supply chains, or the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, are hindering Vietnam’s full recovery.