Short on Labor Market under context of Digtal Transformation in Vietnam

Digital transformation (DX) is advancing across many industries, and the labor market is witnessing significant change. Not only is manual work decreasing in corporate offices, but the way people choose specialized skills and academic majors has also changed. Public and private companies are being forced to revise their human resources strategies to adapt to this major shift.

Current State of the Labor Market The labor force decreased from 55.8 million to 50.6 million between 2019 and 2021 due to the impact of the pandemic. It has since recovered, reaching approximately 53 million in 2024, showing a slight increase compared to the previous year. In recent years, overall productivity growth has been driven primarily not by productivity gains across all three sectors (agriculture, industry, and services), but by labor reallocation- the shift of workers from low- productivity agriculture to high-productivity industry and services.

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the labor market is primarily divided into three categories: agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; industry and construction; and services. Post-pandemic (2022–2024), while employment in agriculture has slightly decreased, the number of workers in industry and construction and in services has been increasing. These sectors reached new peaks by the end of 2024, with 17.5 million people working in industry and construction and 21 million in services.