Japan to recruit 30,000 IT engineers

Hanoi (VNA) - Japan might need to recruit 30,000 foreign Information Technology (IT) engineers, especially from India and Vietnam, in the next four years to work in the country.

Nguyen Doan Hung, Chairman of the Vietnam - Japan IT Cooperation Club (VJC) made this observation at the Vietnam IT Day 2016 in Japan recently.

The event was co-organised by the Vietnam Software and IT Service Association (Vinasa), VJC and Japan Information Technology Service Industry Association (JISA) with the theme of “Vietnam - Japan IT Co-operation heading to TPP” in the end of February.

The annual event has been organised since 2013 with the purpose of boosting IT co-operation between Vietnamese and Japanese companies.

There were more than 200 Japanese enterprises attending the event, along with 16 units from Vietnam, which are leading IT names nationwide.

A representative of FPT Software told Thoi bao kinh te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times) that the company aimed to increase its staff working in Japan from 500 to 3,000 by 2020.

The company also set goals to earn revenue of 500 million USD by 2020 from the Japanese market, accounting for 50 percent of its total revenue.

Its target for the market is to increase revenue by 40 percent and 60 percent in human resources this year, the representative said.

Vietnamese enterprises have made efforts in seeking ways to cooperate with the Japanese as well as Vietnamese schools in order to meet the large demand.

For example, there is FPT Software with a training programme for 10,000 Japanese-speaking IT engineers, or Rikkeisoft with the target of 1,000 IT engineers for Japanese market, reported the Vietnam Economic Times.

Discussing the IT co-operation between the two sides, Le Quang Luong, Deputy Chairman of VJC, said that Japanese partners clarified their expectations from their Vietnamese partners for tighter cooperation.

These expectations include the enhancement of management quality and capacity, technical capacity, increase of human resources that can work onsite, and improvement of communication skills and cultural knowledge.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese side also expects their Japanese partners to increase cooperation in human resources, boost technical and professional transfers and increase usage of English.

However, according to experts, Vietnamese IT enterprises face the challenge of insufficient human resources, especially skilled staff with good software skills and knowledge of foreign languages, mainly Japanese and English.

IT experts said that to meet the requirement of the important market, Vietnamese enterprises should focus on their human resources, have close co-operation programmes with training units and develop human resources both in quantity and in quality.

At the conference, Vinasa shared information on the Vietnamese IT market as a fast-growing market with preferential policies from the government and a new vision considering IT as the most important driving force for the country’s socio-economic development.

Vinasa also introduced the “2015 Vietnam’s 40 leading IT companies” in Japanese.

The reliable publication introduces 40 leading IT companies of Vietnam, voted by Vinasa in 2015.

Vinasa and VJC also worked with Japanese IT organisations and associations to support Japanese companies to come to Vietnam to join the tenth anniversary of Japan ICT Day, an important programme in the Vietnam – Japan IT co-operation this year.

The event will be held in Hanoi and Da Nang in October this year.-VNA