According to statistics from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Viet Nam currently has 74,000 enterprises operating in the information technology sector with more than 1.2 million employees.
To keep up with the growth rate of the economy, it is expected that Viet Nam will need 3 million employees working in this field by 2030. The information technology industry is considered a relatively high-paying industry.
In the context of digital transformation being actively implemented by many agencies and businesses, recruiting IT personnel is always a top priority.
However, with the number of graduates meeting requirements still low, the gap between learned knowledge and practical experience is quite large, so recruiting personnel to work in the field of information technology is still a “difficult problem” without a solution.
Every year, domestic universities and colleges train about 50,000 more IT personnel. However, only about 30% of these immediately meet job requirements, while the remaining 70% have to go through further training processes to master practical skills before officially participating in business projects.
This reality requires units to innovate and diversify training forms to fill the gap in digital human resources. In the coming years, Viet Nam's digital economy is forecast to grow strongly, possibly reaching 74 billion USD by 2030.
For many years, Viet Nam has always been known for its advantage of cheap and abundant labour. However, the digital age, requiring high-quality, skilled, qualified, and specialised labour, is a bottleneck that will cause human resources to be both abundant in quantity and lacking in quality.
Associate Professor, Dr Pham Manh Ha, Director of the Centre for Training and Development Cooperation, University of Education, Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi, shared: “Looking at the current technology job requirements of domestic enterprises and units, we see a story that there is a big gap between the knowledge learned in university and the practical knowledge that students have when they go out to work.
The parameters through each graduation period of students and the needs of the market show that there is no coordination between the training programme and the labour market.” Perhaps the story of Nguyen Tien Anh, an IT graduate from Hanoi University of Science and Technology who is currently working at a telecommunications company, can accurately reflect the current situation of new IT graduates.
He said: Everyone thinks that working in the information technology industry will have a good salary and benefits because this industry has a high recruitment demand. However, in reality, when we graduate, things are not that simple. When applying for a job, companies require 1-2 years of work experience.
In addition, the nature of this industry requires continuous updating of knowledge to keep up with the development of new technology. Meanwhile, we only learn theory, our practical skills are still weak, so it is very difficult to meet the requirements of the job.
From the story of Nguyen Tien Anh, it can be seen that the opinion of Associate Professor, Dr Pham Manh Ha is well-founded. One of the reasons why IT personnel have a gap in knowledge in training and practice is that currently the content and curriculum of training on information technology have not been distributed reasonably.
In addition, career counselling and guidance in the field of information technology must also be implemented early so that students are fully prepared to enter today’s competitive labour market. This is a reality that requires a review of the training process to ensure that training knowledge is linked to practical work.
To fill the knowledge gaps of technology industry personnel, many units and businesses have had new approaches to foster high-quality digital human resources in the future. Many information technology businesses regularly organise career counselling sessions to help young people experience a real working environment and be guided in the work of a software engineer.
This could be an important premise for forming high-quality IT human resources. Having opportunities to experience digital skills and work experience early is a good opportunity for young people to rub shoulders and further hone their skills. For businesses, this is the key to finding high-quality human resources that meet their needs.
To overcome the practical shortcomings of digital human resources, and at the same time to search for and recruit highly qualified personnel to work for businesses, every year, Aptech International Programmer Training System builds and organises a “playground” for young people who are passionate about technology. L
Chu Tuan Anh, Director of Aptech International Programmer Training System, shared: “Building and organising technology playgrounds to bring more new experiences to students compared to just learning knowledge at school is also a practical solution to help Vietnamese youth not be left behind in the development trend of new technologies in the world.”
The global information technology industry is expected to reach a scale of 2 trillion USD by 2028 with nearly 100 million workers. With the rapid development speed and deep integration of science and technology, along with strong changes in thinking about digital transformation and digital application in all aspects of social life as today, the issue of reform in training human resources in the IT industry is necessary.
Viet Nam has a source of information technology human resources that are assessed to have many qualities and potential. However, to turn those qualities and potentials into real skills that meet the needs of businesses, it is necessary to have proper equipment in knowledge and technology.
