Quoc Hung
The number of foreign-invested projects licensed in the city’s IPs and EZs has been on the rise but foreign workers at these facilities have declined considerably, said Nguyen Tan Dinh, deputy director of Hepza.
As of the end of last year, there had been some 2,000 foreigners working at these zones, dipping 5% year-on-year, Dinh said. Meanwhile, according to Hepza, foreign workers at these facilities continued to plummet by 6.3% year-on-year to a total of only about 1,900 by June this year.
From January to June, Hepza issued only 140 new work permits for foreigners, a contraction of 6.6%, while renewing 121 licenses, an increase of 4.3%, and re-issuing six licenses, a reduction of 40%.
The total number of foreign employees with work permits is around 1,700 out of 1,800 in need of such licensing. The majority of new recruitments are to replace other foreign workers whose labor contracts have expired.
Dinh ascribed the falling foreign workforce to the fact that difficulties faced by enterprises have forced them to reduce foreign employment commanding much higher pay than local peers. Besides, he said, it is also because employers will have to pay many expenses involving housing and travel among others when recruiting foreign employees.
The fall of foreign workers in the city also shows that local workers somehow have mastered skills to fill in their positions, Dinh remarked.
As of last month, roughly 1,200 investment projects had remained valid with total pledges of US$7.45 billion in IPs and EZs citywide, creating jobs for around 268,000 workers, dropping 2.09% against this year’s first quarter, Hepza reports.
There were 495 foreign direct investment projects with total commitments of about US$4.48 billion and 762 local schemes totaling some US$2.97 billion, according to the authority.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
