New logistics services have emerged as a result of the rapid development of logistics industry and the 4th Industrial Revolution, posing higher demand for a quality and innovative workforce.
On October 15th, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Ho Chi Minh City (VCCI-HCM), in conjunction with the Logistics Industry Reference Council (LIRC), organised an online and live forum on “Skills forecast for the logistics industry in Vietnam”.
New logistics services have emerged as a result of the rapid development of logistics industry and the 4th Industrial Revolution, posing higher demand for a quality and innovative workforce. Photo credit: Vietnam News Agency
This forum is part of the cooperation program between the Vietnamese and Australian governments, through the Australia – Vietnam Human Resource Develop (Aus4Skills) Program, which aims to promote the quality of vocational education, using industry-led training model, and has been implemented in the logistics sector in Vietnam since 2017.
The forum is an opportunity for the government, industry and education organisations to share different views on the forecast of future skills required by the logistics industry. This is also an opportunity for the LIRC to officially launch the “Logistics Skills Forecast Report 2021 – 2023″, which marks an important milestone in the upskilling of Vietnam’s logistics human resources.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Vo Tan Thanh, Director of VCCI-HCM emphasised that human resource development is one of five priorities for Vietnam’s socio-economic development in the coming time.
Therefore, improving the quality of logistics services and developing infrastructure are very important to improving Vietnam’s competitiveness, given the challenges and impacts posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the 4th industrial revolution on the economic development and the global business environment.
Mr. Vo Tan Thanh also acknowledged that forecasting labor demand is an important and urgent task, which should be associated with socio-economic development strategies and development strategies of each economic sector. He commented that the “Logistics Skills Forecast Report 2021 – 2023” provides detailed information about the knowledge, skills and attitudes for job positions associated with the development trend of the logistics industry.
According to Mr. Thanh, this report is an important and useful source of reference information for the government authorities, education providers and and businesses engaged in logistics. He also believed that this first report makes a significant contribution to enterprises in human resource development, and sets a premise for skills forecast reports in other sectors to be developed in the near future.
Sharing the same view as Mr. Thanhs’, Mr. Mark Tattersall, Deputy Ambassador of the Australian Embassy in Vietnam highly appreciated the role of the LIRC, supported by the Australian Government through the Aus4Skills program. He commented that this first skills forecast report makes a big turning point for Vietnam’s logistics industry in the coming years.
Referring to the COVID-19 pandemic situation in Australia, Mr. Mark Tattersall forecasted an overview of the industry’s trends, labor and skills requirements, and challenges for Vietnam’s logistics workforce. In particular, he emphasised that the prolonged social distancing throughout the pandemic may result in an exit of the current workforce from the labor market, leading to skills shortages, while it will take time to recruit, train and retain a new workforce.
According to Mr. Mark Tattersall, these challenges, combined with socio-economic trends and the 4th industriall revolution demonstrate the importance of forecasting and planning for future job demands as well as essential competencies.
At the forum, Dr. Truong Anh Dung, Director General of the General Department of Vocational Education – The program “Pilot training and retraining to improve workforce skills to meet the requirements Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs also emphasised the important strategy in developing Vietnam’s human resources, which has been approved by the Government, ministries, and local authorities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” which has just been approved by the Prime Minister, aims to train and re-train the workforce at all levels to equip them with appropriate knowledge and skills, to be able to effectively operate 4.0 technologies; create industry linkages and meet their human resources needs; contribute to improving labor productivity and increasing national competitiveness.
Dr. Truong Anh Dung also suggested that the delegates and experts attending the forum identify the occupations in serious shortage of human resources, essential skills that logistics enterprises need. He believed that these suggestions would help Vietnam develop a highly skilled logistics workforce, as well as solutions to logistics human resource development to meet the industry’s demand.
The forum participants further discussed education and training issues, ways to improve the quality of Vietnam’s human resources, and in logictis industry in particular. The also shared new initiatives and ways of thinking, forecasts of vocational skills and logistics workforce development to promote the development of logistics human resources in Vietnam.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thai Van Vinh at RMIT University Australia commented that logistics job positions in Vietnam are always in shortage, especially positions in logistics sales, l information technology, transport and warehouse operation.
He proposed some solutions, such as: internal mobility and supplementary training abroad; recruiting short-term seasonal workers and outsourcing some positions.
Given the development trend of the logistics industry and the 4th industrial revolution, Associate Professor, Dr. Thai Van Vinh also commented that new logistics services have emerged, posing higher demand for a high-skilled and creative workforce.
The discussion on trends, opportunities and challenges, followed by suggestions and recommendations also focused on the collaboration between the government, education and industry stakeholders in the improvement of the quality of the workforce in of logistics sector and in Vietnam in general.
Source: BNews
