Labor shortage

Many businesses have demand but still have difficulty recruiting workers. Illustrative photo

Currently, the demand for labor of enterprises in the province is very large. According to the Hai Duong Employment Service Center, in July, enterprises requested to supply and recruit 1,421 workers through the unit. However, only 60 workers were recruited, much lower than the demand of enterprises. Enterprises in the province are still "thirsty" for skilled, high-quality workers. Enterprises only recruited 21 workers with elementary qualifications or higher, equal to 6.8% of the demand. This is also reflected in the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) in 2021 of Hai Duong. Labor training is one of the few component indexes that decreased in score (down 0.82 points) compared to 2020.

The economy is recovering strongly as the Covid-19 pandemic is under control. Provinces and cities across the country continue to promote the development of industrial parks and clusters. Therefore, in the coming time, the demand for recruitment and competition to attract and retain workers among businesses and between localities will continue to increase.

In fact, solving fundamental problems such as housing and essential facilities for workers in industrial zones will contribute significantly to improving the competitiveness of localities in attracting and retaining human resources. At the Conference on Promoting the Development of Social Housing for Workers and Low-Income People on August 1, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also emphasized that developing social housing for low-income people and workers is the responsibility, obligation, and ethics of the entire political system. The Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Construction to preside over and develop an investment project to build at least 1 million social housing units for workers and low-income people from now until 2030.

In Hai Duong, the housing needs and aspirations of workers, especially workers from other provinces working in Hai Duong, are very large. The survey results chaired by the Provincial Party Committee's Mass Mobilization Commission conducted at the beginning of this year showed that there are currently about 59,000 workers who still have to rent accommodation, accounting for about 18% of the total number of workers in the province, of which 32,000 have household registration in other provinces and cities. The number of workers who need to buy social housing apartments is 10,400 people; the number of workers who need to rent social housing apartments is 10,800 people.

The demand is high but the implementation of housing projects for workers in the province is still limited. In the established industrial parks, only 3 have allocated land funds to build housing for workers, namely Dai An, Tan Truong, Nam Sach with a total cleared land area of ​​9.04 hectares. Dai An and Nam Sach industrial parks have built apartment buildings for workers with a total floor area of ​​about 11,000 m2. The above area only reaches 4.6% of the target set in the Housing Development Program of Hai Duong province to 2020, with a vision to 2030, and has not attracted many workers to live there due to the lack of essential facilities for education, health care, etc. Most workers in the province still have to rent houses built by local people with poor living conditions, not ensuring living needs.

Like many other localities, Hai Duong has identified the most important pillar for socio-economic development as promoting the development of high-tech industry and supporting industry. The province will establish more large-scale industrial parks, attracting more workers, of which the number of workers from other provinces coming to work in Hai Duong will increase. It is forecasted that in 2024-2025, the province will need to attract 6,000-10,000 more workers from other provinces each year; from 2026, it will need to attract 15,000-20,000 more workers from other provinces each year... Along with increasingly strong competition from other provinces and cities, the slow resolution of important issues related to workers' lives will reduce the attractiveness of Hai Duong to highly skilled workers from other provinces coming to live and work.

Labor shortage will certainly greatly affect the effectiveness of investment attraction and socio-economic development of the province. Therefore, along with proactive solutions to attract and retain labor of enterprises, Hai Duong needs to quickly and effectively implement solutions in the Project "Developing human resources to meet production and business requirements, contributing to building Hai Duong into a modern industrial province by 2030" to achieve the set goals and meet development requirements.

HOANG LONG