Enhancing skills for workers to adapt to digital transformation

Securing jobs and enhancing skills for workers in the context of digital transformation is one of the important goals of every country, especially a developing country with a large workforce like Vietnam. ( Photo: vietnamplus.vn)

Hanoi (VNA) – Experts said adapting to the 'digital transformation is key for Vietnamese businesses to not only recover from the COVID-19 pandemic but also enhance their competitiveness in the long run. 

Le Van Thanh, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) said that the digital transformation has been already changed all areas of social life including labour and employment. 

He made the remark during a webinar called “Digital Transformation: International Experience in Employment Security & the Future of Skills for Vietnamese Workers” in Hanoi on October 25.

Thanh said: "Since 2019, there have been many forecasts that digital transformation will affect the employment structure, requiring employees to change their working methods to be able to adapt and seize opportunities.”

He said businesses must change the traditional way of operation to fit a digitally transformed society and the government must make flexible and timely decisions and digitise the form of management.

Thanh said Vietnam is a country with a labour force in its golden age. In 2020, the national labour force was about 54.8 million people; the labour force participation rate was 74.4 per cent.

"Securing jobs and enhancing skills for workers in the context of digital transformation is one of the important goals of every country, especially a developing country with a large workforce like Vietnam.

"In particular, in the past two years, it can be seen that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, in some ways, has been a factor accelerating the process of digital transformation in the field of labour and employment in Việt Nam," he said, adding that as vaccination is deployed globally and in Vietnam as well, the domestic labour market is expected to recover from 2022 onwards.

Thanh said, however, the pandemic, which is forecast to be very unpredictable, will require the labour and employment sector to be more prepared, to change most of the way it operates in the direction of modernity and digitisation to adapt to the ‘new normal’. 

Comprehensive solutions from all stakeholders in the domestic labour market will be also needed to improve the quality of recruitment and training human resources through skills development and knowledge enhancement for workers in the new situation, he said. 

According to ManpowerGroup, one of the leading global workforce solutions companies, digital transformation is among today’s workforce trends.

The Skills Revolution Reboot 2021 research by ManpowerGroup reveals that 38 per cent of companies globally are speeding up their digitisation and automation. Việt Nam is catching up on the trend; 86 per cent of employers are automating plans to maintain or increase their headcount. 

"The global workforce is experiencing an ever-changing world of work, which is hastened by the fourth industrial revolution, particularly digital transformation, and COVID-19," Simon Matthews, Regional Manager of ManpowerGroup in Vietnam, Thailand and the Middle East said at the event. 

"Under the impact of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the pandemic, employers today take a more important role than ever in providing sustainable employment, and the Human Resources department should consider adopting the people-first approach in their business strategy," he added. 

According to a World Bank’s report, the number of new jobs created by digital transformation will be seven times more than the number of jobs lost.

By 2045, an estimated 10 million new jobs (net) will be created, mainly in modern services, and a smaller number of new jobs in the manufacturing sector.

However, this depends on the development of the right skills for the domestic workforce, while the loss of traditional jobs can happen immediately.

Deputy Minister Thanh said there have been many concerns about the digital transformation creating fluctuations in the labour market, especially in countries with low labour productivity and an economy mainly based on supply chain and assembly./.