COVID-19 Impact on businesses and employment
The survey was conducted in July - August 2020, when the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic hit Vietnam. The survey was aimed at forecasting the hiring intentions by enterprises as a consequence of the global health crisis in Vietnam.
At the time of the survey, 48% of interviewed employers reported that their business was slightly impacted by the pandemic and only 17% still operated normally. These businesses operate in Processing & Manufacturing, Wholesale, Retail & Trading, Information & Communications Technology and Healthcare & Life Sciences. When asked about hiring prospects in the later part of 2020 compared to the first half of 2020, more than 44% of respondents forecasted their hiring activities would decrease. However, 29% of surveyed employers reported an increase in hiring intentions, while a similar number of respondents (around 27%) noted no change in recruitment activities.
Employment forecast
In our survey, Vietnamese employers also indicated positive hiring outlook with 38.6% of respondents expecting that their hiring activities will return to pre-COVID-19 level in the next three months. In a longer term period, about 35% of surveyed employers expected to see their hiring recovery in the next 6 and 9 months; and about 21% of respondents foresaw their hiring activities return to normal within a year.
Specifically, recruitment intentions in the next 3 to 6 months appear to be more robust in the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) and Wholesale, Retail & Trading sectors, with around 18% and 17% of surveyed participants expecting their hiring activities to return to pre-pandemic level, respectively. Processing & Manufacturing industry comes next with 14%.
Given the positive employment outlook in the coming time, when asked what human resources services they expect to use from external workforce solutions vendors, 32.4% of the surveyed employers choose Permanent recruitment services, followed by more than 24% opting for Outplacement, Career Management and Leadership Development. Staffing and Payroll services were picked by about 18% of respondents. Meanwhile, Outsourcing service was selected by 13% of the respondents.
