The labor market in 2026 will face many challenges

Recruiting high-quality workers faces many difficulties

Mr. Truong Tuan Vinh - Recruitment Specialist, Human Resources Department of Samsung Electronics Company Limited, Ho Chi Minh City CE Complex (SEHC) - said that because it is considered the leading domestic electronics manufacturing base in the region and the world, SEHC's annual recruitment demand usually includes two main areas: replacement recruitment (due to rotation/transition) and recruitment according to projects or when there are activities to expand functions (for example, the recruitment information according to new projects has been publicly posted, the recruitment of large number of production staff). Therefore, the total annual recruitment demand is often unstable. In 2025, SEHC's recruitment demand will increase by 15% compared to 2024 due to the expansion of a new line and is forecast to continue to increase in 2026.

According to Mr. Vinh, the Vietnamese labor market, especially the Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong areas (formerly), is developing strongly, but there is still a gap between supply and demand. For SEHC, the most difficult point is not a shortage of people, but a shortage of the right people, especially the capabilities related to modern, quality and digital skills in line operation.

"Recruitment is not too difficult for unskilled workers, but it is very challenging for high-quality personnel, currently lacking about 20% - 30% of engineers with digital and automation skills compared to the needs of foreign investors such as Samsung in general and SEHC in particular" - Mr. Vinh said.

Similarly, Ms. Thu Huong, Human Resources Director of a large company specializing in leather shoes and school baskets in Ho Chi Minh City, also said that her company recruits about 450 - 500 workers every year. In 2025, although businesses will cut redundant labor many times, recruitment will be more difficult and the quality of candidates will not be as high as in previous years.

"Due to the need to optimize human resources, in 2025, our company will require candidates with multi-purpose skills, capable of solving many problems, and meeting more job positions, but candidates with low ability to meet the requirements are quite difficult in recruitment" - Ms. Huong shared.

The imbalance between workers' capacity and business requirements

According to the assessment of the Ho Chi Minh City Employment Service Center, in 2026, the forecast of the labor market supply - demand is not compatible and recruitment demand will continue to be higher than job search demand when the three main drivers for the city's economic development continue to be maintained. Foreign investment projects attract great demand for specialized labor and unskilled labor. In addition, the socio-economic development orientations for the period 2025 - 2030 show that human resource demand will continue to increase, especially in the high-quality service, technology, processing and logistics industries.

According to Ms. Nguyen Van Hanh Thuc - Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Employment Service Center - the biggest challenge for the labor market in Ho Chi Minh City is the large level of imbalance between employee capacity and business requirements. The evidence is that the labor supply structure in 2025 shows that the job-seeking force is concentrated at high school and junior high school levels, while businesses mostly need workers with expertise with clear practical, technical and professional skills. In addition, competition for high-quality human resources is increasingly fierce in the fields of information technology - data - high-end logistics - finance, this is an industry group with strong and continuous demand growth, but supply is limited and tends to shift to areas with better conditions. This requires workers themselves to quickly improve their qualifications to meet the increasing recruitment demand.

Mr. Truong Tuan Vinh said that Vietnam is deeply integrating with the region and the world, so it is necessary to take advantage of this opportunity to develop high-quality human resources through enhancing the ability to practice technology such as automation, AI (artificial intelligence) applied in production, instead of just pure theories. For training institutions that need to combine soft skills training (working in groups, presenting to the public, communicating in English) to account for at least 20-30% of the training program, helping students easily integrate and become "global citizens".

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