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WORKING FEATURE
by Keely Burkey
Saying Hello to High-Tech As the IT industry begins to struggle under the weight of a thinning workforce, the manufacturing industry has been growing strong.
less highly skilled, degree-holding people than
the main driver in Vietnam’s relatively recent
an IT outfit would. As Forbes reported this
push to embrace high-tech manufacturing.
year, 78 percent of the Vietnamese workforce holds no academic qualification and 9 percent currently holds a credential from a university or
The labour demand for the manufacturing industry increased 85 percent in the first five months of 2017 compared to the same period three years ago; the demand for labour in the Information Technology (IT) industry increased 102 percent in the same period. This stark statistic, given by the premier online job search VietnamWorks, paints an
higher; when comparing IT and manufacturing, these numbers matter.
In a professional landscape in which engineers and IT professionals have become a finite resource, it seems that manufacturing is currently filling in the gap left by IT’s recruiting troubles.
two parallel industries are growing — but not
“If you’re going to take one industry that’s
how the talent pool has responded to this need.
growing and doing well, manufacturing is
As Maxfield Brown from Dezan Shira &
manufacturing make up 23 percent of Vietnam’s total exports, and this is exactly following a strategic plan set up by the Vietnamese government, which offers tax breaks and
unambiguous picture of the rate in which these
Manufacturing the Future
Today, electronics and mobile phone
subsidies for targeted manufacturing industries. According to Vietnam’s current “Law on Investment”, high-tech activities, high-tech ancillary products and research and development are number one on the list of divisions with investment incentives out of 16 other investment priorities. Clearly, establishing this industry is target number one for this country on the rise.
probably the one to pick in 2017,” Brown
As Jonathan Moreno, the General Director
concluded.
for Medovations Vietnam suggested, “Manufacturing is the type of investing that
Embracing High-Tech
Associates told us, “I think the IT industry is
the government wants. You’re coming to the country, you’re employing people, you’re adding value, you’re exporting. What country
certainly having some problems. [...] At first
For Michael Sieburg, Associate Partner at
there was an excess of people with the skills
Solidiance Vietnam, the future of manufacturing
necessary to get IT operations off the ground,
in Vietnam can be clearly defined from its past.
and as such tons of people flooded into the
“If you look back seven years ago and you look
Vietnamese market. And now the labour pool
at the export statistics, you won’t see mobile
has (kind of) been tapped, and they’ve been
phones being counted. They’re completely
exceeding the threshold of what made them
absent. If you look at it today, it’s the largest
competitive.”
export product,” he reported.
The simple fact remains that opening a
Spurred on mainly by the gargantuan investment
move manufacturing from its former operations
manufacturing operation in Vietnam requires
made by Korea’s Samsung, cell phone parts are
in the Czech Republic to Vietnam in 2010 was
doesn’t want that? What country doesn’t want to help facilitate that?”
Medical Moves For the leaders at the US-based Medovations, a medical equipment company that ships products to 70 countries around the world, the decision to
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