Enterprises are "hungry" for digital transformation human resources

Human resources are both insufficient and unqualified

Aiming at becoming a high-tech corporation, playing a pioneering role and leading digital technology enterprises in Vietnam, yearly Viettel needs thousands of high-tech human resources. Recently, Viettel has only selected more than 100 candidates out of more than 1,000 applications to train them to participate in the important projects serving the national digital transformation strategy.

In order to expand the production, business and supply lines of telecommunication equipment for domestic and export partners, Vietnam Pacific Manufacturing Co., Ltd. needs to recruit high-quality human resources for the information technology field in charge of operating the server system, connecting the international transactions with a starting salary of VND 23 million/month. After more than 6 months, this enterprise can only recruit 3 people.

“We are 'hungry' for human resources. We really need IT human resources to expand the scale and capacity of the factory, but we cannot recruit them,” said Mr. Dang Van Dam, General Director of Vietnam Pacific Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

CMC Group cooperates with Samsung to provide human resources, even in the context of the epidemic, Samsung still requires CMC to provide thousands of workers yearly. In fact, only about 30% meets the requirements.

Vietnam has a very high demand for digital transformation and IT human resources, but the ability to meet both quantity and quality is still limited, Said Nguyen Trung Chinh, Chairman of CMC Group.

Asia-Pacific region is dealing with a shortage of about 47 million workers in IT field by 2030, with an annual opportunity cost of USD 4.238 billion said David Wei, General Director of Huawei Vietnam. Via the survey, more than 50% of managing director in the region also said that it is difficult to find suitable human resources.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) report, Vietnam belongs to the group of countries that are not ready for the industrial revolution 4.0, most of Vietnam's human resource index is at the low rank. For the human resource index, Vietnam is ranked at 70 out of 100, compared to other countries in Southeast Asia, Vietnam is behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines and is only equivalent to Cambodia. For highly skilled labor index, Vietnam is in the bottom group ranked at 81/100 positions. This is a challenge for the developing countries in approaching the industrial revolution 4.0 and carrying out the digital transformation.

The only solution

Data from the National Committee for Digital Transformation shows that there are more than 240 universities in Vietnam. There are nearly 160 universities with the majors in technical training: IT, electronics - telecommunications, and information security. Yearly, the number of students graduating from these majors is more than 50,000. If this figure includes vocational training at college and intermediate level, this figure is more than 62,000. This rare human resource does not guarantee the national digital transformation plan in all fields.

“Official IT training institutes only provide 40% of the actual demand. Many enterprises offer attractive salaries, but they still cannot find suitable candidates. In fact, only about 16,500 students, (accounting for nearly 30%) of the more than 50,000 IT majors, graduate yearly meets the skills and requirements that enterprises need”, said Dr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, founder of FUNiX said.

The solution for the problem of digital transformation, IT human resources is to increase the quantity and quality of training. Enterprises and employers must, however, accompany to support and order for training institutions.

Said Dr. Tran Ba Duong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thaco, “We are an enterprise, so we feel most clearly about the great impacts of 4.0 revolution. If we do not catch it in time, we will be bankrupt. A shortcut to take the lead will not be successful If we don't have a basic foundation, human resources. Educational institutions must change the programs, the projects that identify the digital transformation approach so that it can be clearly determined whether we can do it, whether it is used or not, whether it is wasted or not.

Said Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Hai Quan, Director of Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, the effective model in training high-level IT human resources is the model linking the educational institutes, the State and the Enterprises. In which, the State builds the legal corridor, promulgates the policies, develops the strategies at the macro level and provides the additional budget. The educational institutes improve the training programs, apply the new pedagogical models (especially Internet applications), recruit more lecturers, build more classrooms and practice rooms, and expand the training scale. The enterprises finance the educational institutes to build more facilities for training and research; add more scholarships; accept student internships; Collaborate on projects…

It can be seen that human resources are the key to decide the success or failure of digital transformation in enterprises and organizations. If a plan to remove this bottleneck is not set, the goal of turning Vietnam into a "digital power" will be a dream only.

Said Mr. Nguyen Huy Dung, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications, the ratio of technical human resources to total labor of the Vietnamese economy is just over 1% in the terms of the human resource structure. This is a low rate.

To raise the minimum rate to 2%, Vietnam needs to train at least 70,000 university students majoring in engineering yearly, an increase of about 40% compared to the present. It is not only a matter of quantity, quality of human resources, it is also a big challenge. Digital technologies are developing rapidly, while the training programs cannot kept up with.

Source : Baodautu