Vietnam's labour market showed signs of recovery as over 82 percent of surveyed participants upbeat about the business outlook this year, projecting increased business revenue.

The figure was unveiled on April 3 as part of the 2014 Flash Survey conducted by Towers Watson Vietnam, a leading professional services company, highlighting compensation, rewards and benefits trends for the industry.

As per the survey results, 67 percent of the 163 respondents forecast an increase in hiring especially in sales and manufacturing functions.

The survey also reflects a positive sign in compensation budget planning with a median budget increase at 9.6 percent. On the other hand, 90 percent of the respondents plan to control costs in human resources activities, including learning and development, compensation, recruitment, and benefits.

More than a half of the respondents have a formal written human resource strategy and 79 percent of respondents currently focus on optimising, streaming, and improving human resource processes. Among these, only 51 percent respondents linked their talent development programme to their rewards programme.

Huynh Thu Huong, the managing director of Towers Watson Vietnam , noted that these findings showed that while the human resources function in organisations had made positive strides in Vietnam , a lot still needed to be done for human resources to become a strategic business partner.

"Human resource strategy should support business strategy and human resources should drive talent and reward programmes that provide a competitive edge to companies. Human resources should also effectively analyse data to optimise their processes and transform the human resource function in their organisations," Huong stated.

Meanwhile, Towers Watson Vietnam has also started the new cycle of 2014 Total Rewards Survey for all industries. This Towers Watson's survey looks at salary hikes in various industry sectors, including chemical, energy, financial services, technology, media, pharmaceuticals, and a range of job levels within organisations.-VNA