Vietnam's labor productivity is the lowest in ASEAN: "We do not embellish the numbers"

"The Government's policy is to look at reality, not embellish numbers, report what is done, avoid exaggerating, doing less and talking more about an event."

Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Nguyen Van Nen expressed his views on the question related to Vietnam's labor productivity index being the lowest in the ASEAN bloc, at a regular press conference held by the Government Office on the afternoon of September 30 in Hanoi.

Based on its calculations, the International Labor Organization (ILO) recently stated that Vietnamese labor productivity is currently low compared to ASEAN-6 countries (more developed countries in ASEAN) and the lowest compared to other Asia-Pacific countries. Vietnamese labor productivity is equal to 1/5 of Malaysian labor, 2/5 of Thai labor and 1/15 of Singapore.

ILO commented that Vietnam's labor productivity is only 1/15 of Singapore's.

According to ILO, currently only about 20% of Vietnamese workers are trained in professional skills and expertise, while 80% are unskilled and low-skilled workers.

Expressing the Government's view on this issue, Minister and Head of the Government Office Nguyen Van Nen said that Vietnam's labor productivity in 2013 was among the lowest in the ASEAN region, a figure calculated by the General Statistics Office (Ministry of Planning and Investment) in accordance with international practices and the ILO.

Providing more information on this at the press conference, Mr. Doan Mau Diep - Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said that the labor productivity of a country is calculated by the ILO according to the formula: taking the total domestic income divided by the number of employees.

From the above formula, the leaders of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said that Vietnam is one of the three countries with the lowest labor productivity in ASEAN (only higher than Myanmar and Cambodia).

Mr. Doan Mau Diep pointed out the reasons because the rate of labor in agriculture is still high; industry is mostly processing, with little high technology; the rate of trained workers with degrees is still low.

"Vietnamese people working in Korea are just as productive as Korean workers. Whether we like it or not, with the current level, we have to admit that we have not yet made in-depth investments," Mr. Diep commented.

Regarding the figure of only 1.84% of Vietnamese people being unemployed, Deputy Minister Doan Mau Diep emphasized that we should not be too optimistic and happy with this figure, because the proportion of Vietnamese workers working in the informal sector is quite large.

“Measuring the health of the labor market is not only based on the unemployment rate, but also many other indicators, such as the working area, whether or not one has social insurance… Just like a general health check-up must include full indicators of weight, blood pressure…” – Mr. Diep likened.

Previously, in the regular meeting of the Government in September 2014, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, Chairman of the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement, emphasized that to increase labor productivity, it is necessary to restructure first, focusing on industries with high added value. In addition, the Government needs to encourage and motivate enterprises to invest in science and technology through specific preferential policies on tax and credit. Moreover, it is necessary to improve the quality of human resources from office workers to technical workers and manual workers.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that the National Council for Sustainable Development and Competitiveness Improvement will meet and propose to the Government a resolution to improve and increase labor productivity similar to Resolution 19 on improving the business environment and enhancing national competitiveness.

According to Infonet