Politburo Resolution 57-NQ/TW on breakthroughs in developing science, technology, innovation, and national digital transformation and Resolution 71-NQ/TW on breakthroughs in developing education and training have established a new mindset for scientific and technological development, accompanied by breakthrough policies on training and attracting talent.
Politburo Resolution 71-NQ/TW aims to supplement human resources for national development. Identifying limitations like poor quality and insubstantial autonomy, it sets the premise for fundamental innovation, establishing education as a top national policy and the foundation of national competitiveness.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s forecast, by 2030, Vietnam needs about 15,000 design engineers and 35,000 engineers working in chip-semiconductor manufacturing plants; simultaneously, this will create 154,000 indirect jobs and contribute VND360 trillion (US$13.8 billion) to GDP.
On the other hand, focusing on developing the digital, green, and circular economies demands skilled human resources to meet requirements in strategic technology fields like semiconductor microchips, AI, automation, biotechnology, new energy, and advanced materials. However, Vietnam is facing a shortage of personnel in these areas.
Specifically, the ICT sector employs roughly 1.8 million people, or 1.1 percent of the workforce, a low rate compared to regional peers. Furthermore, this workforce often lacks practical skills and English proficiency. The country has only about 300 AI experts, failing to meet market demand.
Similarly, the growing semiconductor industry requires 5,000–10,000 engineers annually, yet current capacity meets less than 20 percent of this need. This severe shortage significantly hampers the operationalization of AI and the attraction of major multinational investment projects.
In a recent report, the World Bank assessed that Vietnam’s supply of highly specialized human resources remains very limited, failing to meet the demand of technology industries, especially personnel for R&D of high-tech products and services, IT, and semiconductor technology. The rate of vocationally or university/post-graduate trained human resources is merely 13 percent, much lower than other countries in the region.
Statistics from the Education and Training Ministry reveal that by late 2025, although there are 160 technical universities, only 1,400 microchip and 5,000 chip design engineers graduated. Moreover, 50 universities training 5,500 biotechnology majors annually fail to meet demand. Consequently, the biotechnology workforce, particularly in life sciences and bioengineering, remains highly sought after due to critical supply shortages.
In the 2019–2023 period, the number of new students enrolled in STEM majors increased by an average of approximately 10 percent annually, higher than the average growth of all training majors (7 percent). In 2023, university students in STEM majors reached approximately 690,000, accounting for 31.4 percent of total university students and 69 per 10,000 people in the total population, equivalent to the EU average.
However, this figure is lower than many advanced countries in the region and the world, especially the number of students studying basic sciences like life sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, and statistics, which only account for approximately 1.5 percent (four times lower than the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Germany, and the EU average).
Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thanh Nam from University of Science (Vietnam National University-Hanoi) acknowledges that basic science training faces significant challenges. Despite being the knowledge economy’s foundation, theory-heavy programs and limited post-graduation income make these majors less appealing than technology-linked fields.
Confirming this reality, Prof Dr Ngo Thi Phuong Lan, President of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University-HCMC), notes that many majors have consistently failed enrollment quotas since 2017, even with low entrance scores. Some are maintained solely as national tasks, while research activities suffer due to staff shortages.
Concurrently, Nguyen Van Chien, Deputy Head of the Education Policy and Strategy Research Department (Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences) emphasizes that the urgent demand for training in basic sciences and strategic technology remains unmet. The country faces severe shortages of systematically trained human resources in high-tech sectors like AI, big data, and biotechnology. For IT alone, the country currently lacks approximately 150,000 engineers.
This critical scarcity in key engineering sectors creates a significant barrier to national development, highlighting the disconnect between educational programs and market needs, especially as new technology sectors require highly skilled and adaptable workforces.
Statistics of the Education and Training Ministry on tertiary education show that in the 2024–2025 school year, the country has nearly 94,000 lecturers. Among them, there are 790 professors; nearly 6,200 associate professors with PhDs; about 26,500 PhDs; 54,067 masters; 4,690 bachelors; and 1,693 with other qualifications. Thus, lecturers with doctoral degrees or higher only reach about 28.2 percent, a quite low rate compared to many countries in the region.
Meanwhile, postgraduate enrollment results (master’s and doctoral students), the key force leading research breakthroughs, technology mastery, and innovation, show modest figures. Specifically, the doctoral quota was 7,068 but actual recruitment was only 4,077 (accounting for 57.68 percent); the master’s quota was 68,652 but only 43,785 were recruited (at 63.78 percent).
