Vietnam may fail to achieve their targets for sending 80,000 labourers abroad this year, experts said, forecasting that the situation would improve in coming years.
Suspicious statistics
The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ Overseas Labour Management Department, said, in the first ten months of the year, Vietnam sent 70,253 labourers abroad, including 7,496 in October, compared to this year’s target of nearly 80,000.
Dao Cong Hai, Deputy Head of the department, said the local labour export market has been extremely slow this year, which came partially from the of South Korea closing its job market to Vietnamese workers, which affected an estimated 13,000 in this country. In the last months of the year, 7,000 Vietnamese labourers would have to be sent overseas in order to to fulfill the goal.
An expert from the labour export sector raised doubts concerning the Overseas Labour Management Department’s statistics between January and October, especially statistics focusing on Vietnamese workers sent to Laos and Cambodia.
According to the department, as many as about 4,550 Vietnamese workers went to Laos to work in the first ten months, and 3,962 to Cambodia. Meanwhile, so far Laos and Cambodia are not listed among the countries which receive Vietnamese workers. “Whether the department has added these two countries to the list to narrow the gap between the real figure and the set target is unknown at this point,” said the expert.
He claimed that if the figures about labourers sent to Laos and Cambodia had to be compared with those countries, Vietnam would have to send an additional 18,258 people abroad to meet the target. In the context of economic difficulties, such a feat would not be easy.
According to a journalistic survey of some labour export firms, despite paying different fees to the companies, many labourers have to continue to wait on administrative procedures to be completed for months. This happens very often in Taiwan and Japan.
For South Korea, an official from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has always said that a special memorandum of understanding between Vietnam and South Korea will be signed soon in October. Under the memorandum, South Korea will open its doors to Vietnamese workers again. However, October is over, there have been no new statements about the signing.
Next year not expected to be much better
Many officials from Vietnamese labour export firms said the situation will not improve in 2014. A general director of a labour export company in Hanoi said, next year the situation will be more intense. It is likely that less Vietnamese will be sent to Japan in 2014, because Japanese companies lowered their quotas for imported labour.
One reason it is difficult for Vietnamese workers to compete with those from other countries, such as China or Indonesia is that the rate of Vietnamese workers who quit before the contract is up is higher than those of other countries.
At the same time, “Airfare from China to Japan is much cheaper that from Vietnam, which is another reason for Japanese companies to choose Chinese laboruers,” the general director said.
Taiwan has opened its doors to Pilipino labourers who tend to be better at foreign languages, workplace skills.
Đăng ký: VietNam News