Since mid 2017, K Garment Company in Linh Trung 1 Export Processing Zone, Thu Duc district has dismissed 800 workers, most of them are old and working in simple phases in the production line with low productivity. Their opportunity to seek new jobs is very little.
Similarly, Shing Viet Company is negotiating to stop labor contracts with 400 workers at Factory No.2 in Truong Tho ward, Thu Duc district because it has met with difficulties in orders and been unable to remain operation.
Fenix Knitting Vietnam has announced to close their plant to do procedures to go bankruptcy, putting 220 workers in the verge of jobless. Adding to the woes, the company has still got into arrears of workers’ wages, social insurances and others.
Lot of workers in garment and textile and footwear fields have been in the danger of losing their jobs because the appearance of automated production lines and robots when firms invest in new production technologies.
In fact, many companies have equipped robots to work together with humane in plants or even replace workers in some phases and divisions.
A representative of District 12 based Sakos Joint Stock Company, specializing in making backpacks and hand bags, said that an automated thread cutting machine can replace 4-10 workers in each production shift and a robot can replace nearly 30 assembly workers for three working shifts.
At a seminar in HCMC recently, Mr. Nguyen The Hung, deputy director of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) in HCMC, citing data from International Labor Organization said that two third of 9.2 million workers in the garment and textile and footwear industries in Southeast Asia are under threat of Industry 4.0.
In Vietnam, 86 percent of workers in these fields will be badly affected by automation and industrialization waves. Of these, female labors account for a significant number.
The danger might result in heavy damage when these fields provide a large number of jobs for domestic labors.
Many companies have been in the demand of recruiting lot of workers. For instance, Saigon 3 Garment Company has announced recruitment of over 700 workers to expand production scale. Still the company requires applicants to have working skills to operate modern machines.
Director of a garment firm with 8,000 workers in HCMC said that Industry 4.0 has brought lot of challenges besides opportunities. Labor source is a big problem as it has been difficult to find normal workers while Industry 4.0 has higher than normal requirements in the qualification of workers. Once automated production lines are put into operation, workers must adapt to the change by improving their working skills.
