Nguyen Thien Tam, Business Director of Sutrix Media Vietnam, a software firm, said his firm has leased personnel to other firms under the short term contracts (3-6 months). “We are leasing personnel to 10 companies, both domestic and foreign, about 80 workers, accounting for 60 percent of our staff,” Tam said. According to Mai Hoang An, Director of IMT Solutions, the company regularly leases 5-10 software programmers to other companies, while the company itself also hires personnel from other companies when it needs more workers to fulfill urgent contracts. Nguyen Hau Giang, a senior executive of a software firm, specializing in doing the outsourcing for the Japanese partners, said the demand for the personnel who can design and make software products for smart phones is very high, especially those, who specialize in iOS, specifically designed for iPhones. Giang also said that since the firm has received big orders, it has hired five workers for the projects. Giang went on to say that if the orders are big enough to ensure stable jobs for one year or more, IT firms should employ new personnel. Meanwhile, if they only want to fulfill some urgent short term orders, it would be better to hire workers for definite time, because this allows saving money. However, IT firms have complained that they regularly have to face risks, because they may lose the leased workers and get involved in labor disputes. Therefore, in most of cases, in the labor leasing contracts, there is always a provision that the leasers and the leasees must not scramble for others’ workers, after the contracts terminate. Giang said that the dispute would not occur at the enterprises which keep good long term relations. However, An of IMT said it is still necessary to tightly control the staff by keeping regular contacts with the managers of the companies to which it leases personnel. This would allow the owners of the businesses to timely settle any arising problems. Vietnam is now lacking the serious shortage of personnel in the software industry, with the market demand higher than the supply capacity. Truong Gia Binh, President of FPT, said on Kinh te Vietnam newspaper that FPT plans to recruit 1000 personnel a year, but it never can find enough workers, and it regularly lacks some 300 workers. A report about the 100 cities most attractive in the world in terms of software outsourcing released recently by a consultancy firm showed that Vietnam’s grade has fallen in the list of the software outsourcing addresses. HCM City has fallen by 12 grades from the 2009’s list, now ranking at the 17th position. Meanwhile, Hanoi has fallen by 11 grades, ranking at the 21st. More and more software outsourcing orders are coming to Vietnam. Besides, there is a growing tendency that instead of outsourcing to Vietnam, foreign firms would rather set up production bases in the countries, hiring Vietnamese workers. Paul Smith, Managing Director of Harvey Nash, a 100 percent British software firm, said at the Vietnam business forum in London on August 14, that Vietnam is really a market with great potentials for foreign investors to exploit. He said that the Vietnamese labor force is qualified, industrious, honest and good in English skills. The only problems he can see in Vietnam are the complicated procedures and the inconsistency of the laws and regulations. Vietnamnet/ Compiled by C. V