Which sector will have the largest demand on recruitment in the second half of this year?

Banking hiring is expected to remain hit fastest rate in the third quarter of 2021. Photo: Kienlongbank

Low demand for workers in many sectors

In a recent report published by Navigos Group, Vietnam's leading human resource recruitment service, in the second quarter of 2021, due to negative impact of Covid pandemic, businesses in many fields have postponed hiring or have very little demand for employees.

For example, the electronics, mechanical and furniture industries in the south will limit recruitment in the next six months because the demand for goods fallout from the pandemic in European and American countries which bumped negatively wooden furniture export from Vietnam. Moreover, the prolonged pandemic in the domestic market forced firms to produce moderately and limit the recruitment for at least the next three to six months. Only some of the vacancies are mid-level managers including Factory Manager – Chief Engineer and supervisory positions.

Along with the above industries, the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industry is forecast to reduce recruitment. Customers in the medical device segment are showing that they only maintain the current staff size. Multinational firms have shown signs of halting business expansion due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some companies are even downsizing their operations and restructuring business models with no room for job vacancies.

Remarkably, job vacancies are only available for Vietnamese candidates. Especially, for management positions, even senior managers, many businesses require candidates of the 8x, even 9x generation. In the third quarter, businesses in this segment are still recruiting for marketing and sales positions.

Businesses in the FMCG manufacturing segment are operating moderately due to a focus on fighting the pandemic, leading to the delay or cancellation of recruitment. However, the commercial sector in the field of fast-moving consumer goods still must recruit many positions in sales, marketing, and finance - accounting.

It is expected that the commercial segment is in demand for workforce, but the manufacturing segment will "freeze" recruitment or hire very little in the next six months.

Peak recruitment for banking and securities personnel

According to Navigos Group forecast, the third quarter will see the peak of recruitment in the banking - securities - insurance segments. Quarter 2 witnessed the exciting activity of the stock market and the announcement of "terrible" profits as well as decisions to increase charter capital of a series of commercial banks. This could forecast the trend of business expansion in both banks and securities companies.

Contrary to silence from some manufacturing industries, the banking, securities, and insurance industries offer a variety of job vacancies in sales positions (customer relations), information technology positions in charge for information for system development and digital transformation. Workforce demands in mid-level and senior-level personnel are climbing across, mainly focusing on personnel in the fields of technology, data, and sales team development (branch and regional directors).

Besides, there is still a need to recruit experienced candidates at large foreign companies in new industries such as Big Data, design, marketing, and digital transformation. The candidates favoured by Vietnamese commercial banks in this field are overseas Vietnamese and foreign experts from the Asia-Pacific region. Foreign non-life insurance companies and Korean banks continue to maintain the need to recruit Japanese and Korean candidates.

The agriculture sector needs candidates with deep specialised skills and good English expertise. Recruitment in this segment in the north is still taking place but only focuses on a few positions that need very high expertise. Vietnamese candidates in the agricultural sector are often limited in English fluency. Therefore, in the livestock and poultry industry, large companies tend to recruit foreign senior management positions. Candidates with Thai, Indonesian and Brazilian citizenship are often evaluated well for their knowledge, professional competence and management capacity.