The Hanoi capital administration has approved a programme to generate 705,000 jobs, including 23,000 abroad, for the 2011-15 period.

The scheme comes from a pressure of a boom in workforce, which, as forecast by the municipal Service of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, is to reach 4.6 million by 2015, or 90,000 new comers in each of the next five years.

Consequently, the capital city faces a threat of between 180,000 and 200,000 unemployed annually.

The new move focuses on labour-intensive sectors such as industries and services while calling for restructuring agriculture and rural economy into commercial production and developing crafts villages or crafts streets to provide massive jobs for rural workforce.

Efforts will be made to attract foreign investments, which are considered sources ideal for on-spot labour exports. The scheme also aims to boost labour exports to traditional markets such as Japan , the Republic of Korea and Finland and exploring new markets of great potential.

Vocational training is another focus of the scheme in an effort to meet an increasing demand for skilled workers. Rural labour redundancies as victims of urbanisation are subject to vocational training efforts in order to enable them to find new jobs.

The over 6.4 million strong Hanoi now ranks second in population, following Ho Chi Minh City . During the 2006-09 period, the capital city slotted over 485,000 citizens into jobs, of whom over 15,300 were sent abroad.

This year alone, the municipal administration has set a target of providing jobs for 135,000 work-hands.

The capital city has spent 50 billion VND in vocational training for rural labour redundancies who have lost cultivated land to urbanisation.

More than 70 percent of the graduated apprentices have found jobs, showing that the vocational training quality has met market demand./.