Each Vietnamese worker makes nearly 172 million VND/year.

In its report on the implementation of youth employment policies for the 2020-2023 period, the National Assembly's Committee for Culture and Education said that over the past ten years, the labor productivity growth rate has reached 6%. The rate has improved significantly, but is still much lower than that of other countries in the region and the gap is increasing.

According to the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the reason is that Vietnam's growth model is extensive, depending on the scale of capital and technology. Meanwhile, the contribution of science and technology to growth is still low.

One of the reasons why productivity has not met expectations is the slow economic restructuring and improvement of the labor structure. The labor force working in the agricultural and informal sectors is large, which are places with low productivity and low added value. Specifically, the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector is attracting nearly 31% of young workers, followed by the construction industry at about 42%. Informal workers account for nearly 69% of the total working-age workforce.

Population aging also has a major impact on future labor productivity, as the youth labor force of working age decreases by an average of 170,000 people per year. The proportion of youth in the population structure is also gradually decreasing from 23% in 2020 to 21% in 2022.

Meanwhile, the proportion of trained young people with degrees and certificates has been increasing slowly each year, reaching just over 29% by the end of 2021. Vietnam still lacks skilled and highly technical workers; vocational education has not met the growing needs of the market.

"The above situation shows worrying signs about the future generation of workers," the Committee for Culture and Education assessed, saying this is a major challenge in the context of global economic integration.

At the socio-economic discussion session at the National Assembly on the afternoon of October 31, delegate Huynh Thanh Phuong (Secretary of the Go Dau District Party Committee, Tay Ninh Province) also stated that low labor productivity is a major challenge for the economy to catch up with the region and the world. "Improving labor productivity is the shortest way to develop the economy quickly and sustainably," said Mr. Phuong, asking the Government to comprehensively assess the labor productivity situation and propose solutions.

The issue of labor productivity has been repeatedly discussed by management agencies, ministries and sectors after a study by the International Labor Organization (ILO) showed that Vietnam's labor productivity in 2013 was among the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically, the productivity of Vietnamese workers was nearly 15 times lower than that of Singapore, 11 times lower than that of Japan and 10 times lower than that of South Korea.

By 2018, Vietnam's labor productivity was higher than Cambodia's but only equal to 7.3% of Singapore's, 19% of Malaysia's, 37% of Thailand's, 44.8% of Indonesia's and 55.9% of the Philippines'.

Labor productivity reflects the ability to create wealth, specific labor efficiency in the production process, calculated by the number of products or the amount of value created in a unit of time or the amount of time to produce a unit of product.