HCM City (VNA)♚ - HCM City and other southern provinces need thousands of labours, mostly manual workers in industries such as textiles, footwear, wood processing and electronics after Tet (the Lunar New Year).

According to the Dong Nai province's Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, over 500 enterprises said they would recruit more than 30,000 workers after Tet. Among them, FDI enterprises need 25,000 employees. The recruitment demand is high in textile, footwear and wood processing sectors. Many businesses, including TaekwangVina JSC, Changshin Vietnam Ltd and Pousung Vietnam Ltd, need to recruit 500 workers or more. There is a rise in recruitment demand this year, an increase of 30 percent compared with last year, said Pham Van Cong, Deputy Director of Dong Nai province's Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs. Huynh Ngoc Long, Director of Employment Service Centre in Dong Nai province said the centre decided to open the first job fair of 2016 on February 25 to meet the demand of enterprises. Long attributed the high demand of employees to the fact that the number of migrant workers from northern and central provinces tend to decrease because they prefer to work at industrial zones near their homes. Workers might change new jobs at the beginning of the year. He also talked about the possibility that enterprises recruit labourers for their business expansion. In his experience, enterprises often receive new orders in April. In southern Binh Duong province, over 110 enterprises said they would recruit about 20,000 labourers to meet the demand this year. Bui ThanhNhan, Deputy Chairman of the provincial Labour Confederation, said most of enterprises resumed operations with over 89 percent of workers returning to work as of February 16. The number of labourers returning to their hometowns for Tet holidays this year dropped compared with previous years, according to the province's Labour Invalids and Social Affairs. It is estimated that about 100,000 workers returned home this year compared with 150,000 last year. Thus, the labour market in the province is stable after Tet, the department said. Tran Anh Tuan, Deputy Head of HCM City's Centre for Human Resource Forecast and Labour Information said enterprises in HCM City needed to recruit an additional 19,000 employees after Tet. Of the 19,000 employees, 30 percent are for part-time and seasonal jobs. Most of these will be in marketing, sales, tourism service, domestic workers, hospitality, construction and other fields. Nguyen Thanh Hung, Director of Tien Loi Garment Company at Tan Binh Industrial Zone, said the company has arranged free bus trips for them to return to their hometowns to celebrate Tet and gave bonuses for them to ensure workers came back to work after the holidays. However, he said, only 70 percent of workers have returned to their jobs so the company's production was affected. The company needs 50 labourers to complete a large contract but it has not recruited any workers yet, Hung said. Unlike previous years, the shortage of labourers in HCM City eased this year as about 85 percent of workers returned to work in industrial parks in HCM City thanks to benefits they received before and after the holidays. It is estimated that the labourer shortage after Tet was between 3 and 4 percent with employee turnover accounting for between 6 and 8 percent of the the total employed workforce, said Tuan.-VNA