At the meeting
On August 25, in Hanoi, a conference was held to review the 10-year implementation of Directive No. 16-CT/TW dated 8 May 2012 of the Secretariat of the XI term on strengthening the leadership of the Party in sending Vietnamese workers and experts to work abroad.
The Directive 16 emphasizes the goal of sending Vietnamese workers and experts to work abroad in order to offer employment for Vietnamese laborers as well as generate income, improve the quality of human resources, increase the country’s foreign currency and contribute to the country's socio-economic development, industrialization, modernization and international integration.
Deputy Head of the Party Central Committee's Economic Commission Do Ngoc An said that after 10 years of implementing the Directive 16, the legal system and policies on sending Vietnamese people to work abroad have been revised, supplemented, and fundamentally changed in accordance with international laws and practices, as well as the policy of international integration of the country. Vocational training, foreign language teaching, legal education, customs and practices of the receiving country, and orientation for workers and experts are increasingly concentrated on.
The number of organizations and enterprises providing services for sending workers to work abroad have increased rapidly over the years. By 2022, 451 organizations and enterprises have been providing this service, two times higher than at the time of issuing the directive. Furthermore, the number of countries admitting Vietnamese workers has increased from nine in 2013 to 25. Within 10 years, more than one million workers and experts went to work abroad, an increase of nearly 40 percent compared to the average period before the directive was issued, creating jobs for about 7-10 percent of the labor force yearly.
The income of workers working abroad is relatively stable, an average of VND 200 million annually, much higher than working in the country. On average, each year workers and experts send home about US$10 billion, an increase of 5 times compared to the period before the directive was issued, not only helping to reduce poverty but also accumulating and investing in production and business, creating jobs, contributing to the country's foreign currency resources as well as the construction of the homeland and the country, especially the new rural construction program.
However, on the other side, in the past time, there are still shortcomings including easy assessment of the quality of vocational training, foreign language teaching, and orientation education for workers while the percentage of skilled workers is still low. Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung said that it is necessary to objectively view the advantages and disadvantages after 10 years of implementing the Directive 16, on that basis, learn from the experience for adjustment in the coming time.
Minister Dao Ngoc Dung affirmed that, regarding policy, sending workers to work abroad is an inevitable trend. In the coming period, it is necessary to continue to improve the domestic legal system, strengthen negotiations with other countries, pay attention to labor supply and demand, and take heed of workers who return from foreign countries in addition to building a sustainable labor market.
