Forecast of the changing trend of the Vietnamese working class in the new era

About positive change trends

First, the number of workers from now until 2030, with a vision to 2045, will still increase.

In the fourth industrial revolution, some technologies have developed remarkably such as: Iot, big data, AI... leading to the formation of new industries directly related to these technologies such as: application developers, artificial intelligence engineers, robot manufacturing engineers, application software writing engineers... Meanwhile, some industries have concentrated many simple workers, green-age workers that are predicted to be at risk of disappearance. So, will the number of working classes in the coming time, when the fourth industrial revolution is developing strongly, increase or decrease, when industries that employ many workers are gradually disappearing? This is not really beyond C. Mac's reasoning in the early 19th century when he said: "Although machinery will certainly fire workers from labor sectors in which machinery is used, it can create more jobs in other labor sectors", because "the more machinery production is expanded in one industry, the more production will increase first of all in other industries, providing production materials for those industries".1 In fact, the development history of industrial parks also shows that the application of technology has increasingly created more new jobs than lost jobs 2: A recent research result also shows that in the period of 1850 - 2015, the application of machinery and technology lost 3,508 jobs, but created 19,263 new jobs3 (for example, from 1980 to 2015, personal computers (PCs) lost more than 3 million jobs in the US, but it also created 19.2 million new jobs). According to the 2018 Future of Jobs Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), about 75 million jobs will be replaced but about 133 million jobs will be created in 2022 in developed and emerging economies. Taking advantage of the fourth industrial revolution to take a shortcut ahead, our country has had many policies to promote the process of industrial production and innovation as well as always affirming science and technology as the top national policy. The process of national digital transformation and the development of the knowledge economy is and will create many new jobs for workers, these jobs mainly come from the foundational technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In fact, since its inception, the number of Vietnamese working classes has been constantly increasing. If before the years of renovation, the number of workers in our country was 7 million, by 2007 it was 9.5 million and in 2013 it increased to nearly 11 million, now there are about 16.5 million people2. Therefore, the forecast of the increase of this stage in Vietnam is completely scientific.

Second, the structure of the Vietnamese working class will shift. Regarding the structure according to economic components: With the policy of proactively approaching the fourth industrial revolution, deeply integrating into the international community, promoting the attraction and effective use of resources from abroad and international partners for research, application, technology transfer activities... to proactively grasp this revolution, creating momentum for the Vietnamese economy to take off, the number of workers in the foreign enterprise sector is increasing.

Regarding the structure of industries: Under the impact of the fourth industrial revolution, the Vietnamese economy is in the process of transformation, the Vietnamese economic structure is transforming towards prioritizing industries with knowledge content, applying maximum scientific and technological advances in production and industry, towards a digital economy, digital technology and knowledge economy. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is creating many new industries, based on the development of science and technology such as: 3D printing technology, artificial intelligence, connecting internet of things, blockchain chain... industries based on the integration of technologies that are considered the foundation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have appeared in Vietnam and are creating daily and hourly breakthroughs for this dynamic economy. Recently, many names of major technology companies such as: Military Technology - Telecommunications Group (Viettel Group); FPT Joint Stock Company (FPT Group); Vietnam Payment Solutions Joint Stock Company (Vnpay) ... the latest technologies are being researched by ancient white-old workers and launched high-applied products.

In the field of artificial intelligence, Vietnam has also achieved certain successes, with the emergence of many large centers and companies specializing in researching in this field such as: Ho Chi Minh City Artificial Intelligence Application Research Center, MobiFone Corporation with the AI Text to Speech application, this is a solution to convert textbooks to Vietnamese, or Camera technology using AI Camera Artificial Intelligence... With these solutions, Vietnamese enterprises today can save costs on hiring workers for jobs such as: customer care, information search or labor management... In addition, the Blochain application is also being used by Vietnamese enterprises to create a closed management chain, increasing the reliability of users for businesses. Users can trace the origin of products based on the application of this technology. Currently, in the industrial and high-tech industries or agriculture, this application has been used by startups: such as Dong Thap Mango, food processing industry... Due to the requirements of businesses and the knowledge economy, the working class has shifted from traditional industries such as textiles, footwear, handicraft processing industry, seafood, consumer goods processing... to high-tech industries. Thus, the demand for intellectual workers who are proficient in skills is increasing, while the demand for traditional manual labor is decreasing.

Therefore, in addition to the traditional labor force, there has been a labor force in new occupations. Most of them are young, healthy workers with educational qualifications and the ability to absorb modern technology. Sexual workers' structure: Unlike previous industrial revolutions, workers mainly operate machinery in an industrial chain, requiring primary health, making it difficult for many female workers to find a job. But now, the new context is creating conditions for gender equality, because this revolution develops new service industries, supporting industries such as restaurants, hotels, banks, etc., which are areas with a lot of female workers.

Regional workers' structure: In the context of increasing foreign investment in Vietnam, the digital economy and the knowledge economy are being formed and developed. Some localities, due to convenient terrain near the center, attract many domestic and foreign investments. Many industrial parks, export processing zones, many private enterprises as well as foreign enterprises, many successful startups... are mainly concentrated in some provinces and cities such as: Bac Ninh, Vinh Phuc, Ninh Binh, Binh Duong, Dong Nai... These are key economic regions of the country, planned for development. In the future, some provinces such as Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City will build smart urban areas and smart cities, operating and managing completely according to new technology systems thanks to artificial intelligence, connecting Internet of Things and big data... Accordingly, high-tech parks will be built here and will become centers for research, production, and testing of new technology applications, before being popular in the market. Therefore, it will be places with a large concentration of workers and especially intellectual workers.

On the contrary, in more complex terrain areas such as mountainous areas, remote areas, remote areas and islands... where ethnic minorities live, the economy is difficult, infrastructure is still poor, there are not many businesses investing and developing the economy.

Third, it is predicted that the quality of the Vietnamese working class will increase to meet the requirements of the fourth industrial revolution and the knowledge economy. The fourth industrial revolution, the knowledge economy, international integration... are posing requirements that if the working class wants to seize the opportunity to have better jobs, more options, and improve the quality of life, there is no other way than to fully prepare the necessary knowledge and skills, which means that they are moving towards improving the quality of their class. Statistical results show: in terms of education level, 70.2% of the total number of workers have high school education level, 26.8% have junior high school education level, 3.1% have primary education level, 17.9% have intermediate education level, 6.6% have college level, 17.4% have university level; in terms of professional qualifications, there are currently 48% of workers trained at enterprises.

If divided by industry, the rate of workers trained in the mining sector is 50.4%; the processing industry sector is 18.5% in 2016; the construction sector increased by 14.0%; the transportation service sector is 55.2% per year; the financial, banking and insurance service sector is 83.1%.

Fourth, regarding the political qualities and ideological stance of the working class. With the requirements and demands for skills, work skills... that the fourth industrial revolution is dat upon, the team of high-tech workers and intellectual workers has developed. The fourth industrial revolution is bringing this group of workers good job opportunities with high incomes, and a stable life. This is a condition for workers on the one hand to improve their knowledge, on the other hand, easily enlighten and have the ideological and political will to strive for a more solid class stance.

Regarding negative change trends:

First, it increases the risk of job loss for a part of simple workers who cannot adapt to the new context. The fourth industrial revolution along with the development of the knowledge economy is and will impact the shift from traditional industries such as textiles, footwear, seafood processing industry, consumer goods processing... to technology industries... This is also a challenge for the current Vietnamese working class. It is clear that in the future, the demand for intellectual workers who are proficient in skills is increasing, while the demand for traditional manual labor is decreasing. Meanwhile, the rate of workers in manual labor and simple labor is still high. For example, Vietnam's textile and garment industry is also one of the main export industries and plays an important role in the growth of the economy "accounting for 12 - 16% of the total export turnover of the country". However, according to statistics, over 70% of small and medium-sized enterprises in the textile and garment industry will have great difficulty investing and applying new technology; 30% of enterprises, including foreign-invested enterprises and large domestic enterprises, have applied automation at each production stage, of which less than 5% plan to deploy connected automation technology. This is a big risk and challenge for the Vietnamese workforce currently working in these industries. By 2030, the vision to 2045, the Party and State's policy is to transform quickly and strongly by digital means, becoming an industrialized country that fully applies the achievements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

This leads to the risk of disappearing some industries such as textiles and footwear and many workers currently working in these industries, if there is no shift policy, will be at risk of losing their jobs, their lives will be precarious and difficult. This is a big challenge for the team of ancient workers, traditional workers or simple workers.

Second, the fourth industrial revolution is posing a problem of solving employment for female workers in the future. It can be seen that the number of female workers concentrated in areas with foreign investment capital is the highest, accounting for 68% of the total number of female workers today, but their main job is production staff, that is, processing, and simple manual labor. Meanwhile, the two trends that the fourth industrial revolution brings are: factories shift to places where science and technology develop, and the second trend is that factories will move to places near the consumption market to grasp customer tastes as quickly as possible...

Foreign enterprises, currently employing many female workers such as Samsung Vietnam... in the future, will not be out of that trend. So, where will the large number of female workers and simple laborers go? This is a problem that needs to be answered. This is putting female workers in front of unpredictable opportunities and challenges.

Third, social problems can arise among the Vietnamese working class. When workers are mainly concentrated in urban areas, areas with convenient transportation, developed facilities and infrastructure, places with many high-tech parks, export processing zones... leading to the problem of how to live a worker's life to meet the requirements of food, accommodation, living and accompanying services... Along with that, it can easily lead to many complex social problems arising such as gambling, drugs, prostitution...

In addition, there is the issue of security among workers. The expansion of international integration, typically joining the CPTPP (Vietnam has been a member since 2018), regarding the issue of workers joining Vietnam Trade Union faces many challenges from the regulations of this organization on free labor choice. In addition, the state is also under great pressure to amend labor laws, trade unions have the right to freedom to establish or join trade unions according to the choice of workers, autonomy in trade union activities, the right to strike to comply with international labor standards before the CPTPP Agreement takes effect for implementation... Pressure on the implementation of labor provisions such as dispute resolution mechanisms, complaint resolution mechanisms, cooperation mechanisms, and mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of the agreement. Pressure on improving national legal regulations and labor conditions to comply with other international labor standards stated in the agreement such as: child labor, forced labor, employment and occupational discrimination.

Participating in the process of globalization and international integration has created many outstanding issues that need to be addressed: Unemployment and unemployment in the coming time still exist; rich and poor differentiation increases rapidly; the social stratification and differentiation among the working class are also increasingly deepened in terms of education, expertise, occupation, income, standard of living, differentiation in political awareness of workers; the gap in benefits between workers, between occupations and economic sectors. Labor relations in production facilities, especially in non-state enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises, still tend to be complicated. These factors have a strong impact on workers in many fields, especially in the field of ideology and political awareness of the working class.

The competitive trend in the domestic market is increasingly fierce; at the same time, the economy often faces external shocks, first of all, the crisis, the global economic recession, fluctuations in world prices, international trade disputes... which will lead to the risk of job loss, unemployment and great job pressure among workers. Of which, low- qualificated workers, older workers and rural imported workers are at highest risk.

Fourth, it is predicted to have a negative impact on the political awareness of the Vietnamese working class. A paradox is happening in society that if a group of intellectual workers take on new jobs related to artificial intelligence, information technology, big data... fields that are predicted to create many attractive jobs with high incomes, high-tech workers, intellectual workers will get richer and richer, then on the contrary, workers take on jobs mainly related to manual labor, in traditional industries not only at risk of unemployment, but also increasingly poor. This group of workers is facing great challenges, so who they are or what their historical mission is no longer important, the important thing is how they will face the upcoming changes in work and life.

This is directly affecting the class awareness of a part of the world's workers. Sometimes they are busy chasing material needs and forget or are indifferent to the nature of their class. In particular, for a group of workers who are at risk of being left behind, facing an unstable and poor life, they cannot absolutely think about the nature of the class, the historical mission or simply their role and position in the development of society. This is truly a problem that socialist countries need to ask and solve when implementing the shift in economic structure towards a digital economy, high technology...

From now until 2030 and the whole year of 2045, the development of the GCCN is still the result of the total application of the guidelines and policies of the Party and State in the context of the world and Vietnam. reality, especially in the years of national renewal, has proven that if the Party's guidelines and the State's policies are correct and realistic, meeting the objective requirements of the contemporary environment, the country will develop rapidly and sustainably. That guideline and policy will be creatively applied to building the GCCN, making the GCCN develop in line with the country's orientation towards socialism; workers will be a model of the new people of Vietnam; the entire GCCN will be the core in the public-agricultural-intellectual alliance and the great national unity bloc - a great driving force for the cause of building and defending the Fatherland of Vietnam. If the guidelines and policies are not suitable or are not applied specifically, and there are not enough necessary resources... then the development of the GCCN will not be able to meet its important position and role in the country's renovation.

From now until the middle of the 21st century, the world and domestic situation will have intertwined advantages, opportunities and difficulties, and challenges, posing new, heavy and complex problems for the cause of building and defending the Fatherland. Therefore, our Party and State must also continue to strongly innovate to improve the quality of leadership and management, including planning guidelines and policies in general and impacting the GCCN in particular, making the country a strong step forward to become: A developed country, following the socialist orientation.