Improving laborers’ workmanship before the TPP playground

As a locality with businesses and industrial parks, Binh Duong has focused on developing skilled human resources at the local development requirements in the new context, especially when Vietnam joins the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP).

Efforts

Binh Duong over the past time needed around 50,000 laborers annually at enterprises’ production and business activities. In the period of 2015 and 2020, the province will give priority to highly skilled human resources while keeping existing workforces before the birth of industrial parks in southern provinces and cities.

Binh Duong is making efforts in improving laborers’ workmanship. In picture: Laborers working for a furniture business in Ben Cat town

Immigrant laborers are changing to newly-operated industrial parks. Binh Duong is also under a great pressure from the local education sector as the number of laborers herein has so far amounted to nearly 900,000. In fact, around 20,000 pupils enter the first grade every year, making the local education sector face a great pressure in building material facilities for teaching and learning needs.

Since early 2010, the province has built additional 147 schools, bringing the total number of schools herein to 516. But, businesses still had to seek unskilled laborers from other localities over the past time.

According to the owner of a foreign-invested company, there is now a severe competition on workforce in Binh Duong. To keep laborers, businesses need to have higher salary policies together with other incentive ones.

Whilst, Chang Chun Kuan, Chairman of province-based Taiwan Business Association said that it is very hard for businesses to seek highly skilled laborers in Binh Duong. This is also a barrier for the local development in the future.

Sustainable development

Binh Duong has bent on dealing with the issues of improving the quality of human resources and giving preferential treatment for talents.

According to statistics, the province is now home to 8 universities, 6 colleges, 17 junior colleges, 46 vocational training facilities and 50 centers of foreign languages-informatics. The province’s annual State budget for education sector is always ensured at the average level of 11.7%. In 2015 alone, the province spent VND3trillion on education and training.

The province has seriously implemented a policy of “rolling out the red carpet to absorb talents”. Over the past 5 years, the province attracted 267 people with post-graduate education, including 3 associate professors-doctors, 27 doctors and 237 master’s degree holders.

To Jurgen Mallon, Principal of Vietnamese German University, Binh Duong has a great demand for highly skilled workforce. In the coming time, Binh Duong should be oriented to develop into the country’s top human resource training center to meet the local development requirements as well as sharing workforce with other localities.

Prof.Chui Chee Kong of the National University of Singapore emphasized that Binh Duong is a big workshop on contract in the Southeastern Asian region. That’s reason why the province needs to quickly train highly skilled human resources. According to experts, the capital flows from countries joining the TPP are shifting to Vietnam. This will make the demand for human resources, especially highly skilled ones soar.

Tran Van Nam, Secretary of provincial Party Committee cum Chairman of provincial People’s Committee said that Binh Duong has been oriented for sustainable development with economic structure shifted towards the growth of trade-services…Therefore, the demand for highly skilled human resources is an urgent issue. Binh Duong will give top priority to investment in education and training in order to generate qualified workforce, helping quickly fulfill the local target on industrialization and modernization.

Reported by Phung Hieu-Translated by K.T