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ASEAN integration to raise job hopes

Most Vietnamese professionals consider the ASEAN Economic Community integration a good opportunity to develop their career, a survey has found.

Done in July by jobs website VietnamWorks, it polled 2,500 professionals at all levels and working for companies of all sizes around the country.

More than 90 per cent of respondents said Viet Nam joining the ASEAN Economic Community was good news for them.

The two most common benefits mentioned were more opportunities to work with and learn from foreign experts from other ASEAN countries (52 per cent of respondents) and a transformation of the Vietnamese work culture for the better by the international work culture (46 per cent).

Seventy per cent of the respondents were confident that Vietnamese professionals had enough skills to compete with foreign talent.

On the other hand, 84 per cent of those who did not think AEC integration was good feared more English-speaking competition in the Vietnamese labour market.

The second most common concern was that employers could have the leverage to decrease salaries and benefits because there would be more and more job-seekers.

Nearly 70 per cent of the naysayers said Vietnamese professionals lacked the skills to compete with foreign workers. Most respondents agreed on the three most important skills Vietnamese workers needed to equip themselves with to be ready for AEC integration: language, communication, and leadership/management.

In terms of demand and supply, Nguyen Thi Van Anh, managing director of executive search firm Navigos Search, said of the eight industries that would be allowed free skilled labour movement within the AEC, Viet Nam only met its own demand for workers in engineering services and accountancy.