Vietnam’s construction industry is entering a new phase of growth and complexity, driven by rising infrastructure demand, increased FDI growth and ambitious government investment. At the same time, the shift towards digitalized and sustainable construction is accelerating demand for highly skilled talent.
With around 30% of Vietnamese workforce formally trained, construction firms face an acute skills shortage and are increasingly turning to cross-border recruitment to access global expertise. However, relocating foreign professionals brings complex challenges—from visas and work permits to tax, payroll, and family settlement.
This article examines why global mobility services for construction have become a strategic workforce solution for large enterprises in Vietnam, enabling compliant talent deployment while protecting productivity and project continuity.
Key takeaways
- Vietnam’s construction sector faces a growing shortage of specialized talent
- Cross-border recruitment is rising to meet infrastructure project demand
- Poorly managed mobility creates legal, tax, and productivity risks
- Structured global mobility services support both talent attraction and retention
Three most common struggles in relocating expatriate construction talent
Many construction firms initially treat expatriate relocation as a task handled solely by internal HR team. In practice, mobility missteps can quickly escalate into legal, financial, and operational risks – especially for long-term projects.
1. Legal & compliance risks around work permits and business visas
Since August 2025, Vietnam has introduced new policies to attract highly skilled talents in crucial industries. For example, work permit processing time was shortened and digital lodgement was introduced, supporting faster deployment of critical talent. However, compliance requirements remain highly technical and demand careful navigation.
Construction firms must still manage:
- Localized, notarized, and legally translated documentation
- Role definitions and quota planning
- Onsite support during immigration and working projects
Any non-compliance or minor paperwork errors can result in visa denials, penalties, or even deportation, disrupting project schedules and exposing firms to reputational risk. For internal HR teams without deep immigration expertise, managing these requirements consistently is challenging.
2. Hidden financial exposure: Tax & Payroll
Deploying foreign experts to construction sites in Vietnam introduces complex and strict tax and payroll obligations. Construction firms often stumble upon these two hidden financial hurdles:
- Personal Income Tax (PIT): Foreign employees can pay up to 30% of their income, depending on their residential status.
- Social Insurance: Mandatory employer and employee payments. Learn how this contribution works.
Managing split payrolls, mid-month arrivals, exchange rate fluctuations, and short-term assignments increases the likelihood of errors. Payroll miscalculation not only affects expatriates’ financial planning but also exposes employers to fines and compliance breaches.
Struggling to process monthly payroll? Contact us for a confidential consultation.
3. Family settlement: An often-overlooked productivity risk
Relocating an expatriate expert typically involves moving an entire family. According to Manpower Vietnam’s experience, settling down in Vietnam often includes:
- Navigating the rising cost of living for major expatriate hubs such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
- Locating hospitals and clinics with English-speaking staff and modern facilities.
- Finding international schools offering IB, British, American, or French curricula.
- Searching for safe, gated residential areas with amenities like playgrounds, gyms, and supermarkets.
Because a construction project execution is directly linked to experts’ on-site focus, administrative friction such as spousal visa delays or housing disputes distracts them from critical project milestone. Effective expatriate management, therefore, is not just an HR function—it is a risk mitigation strategy for construction productivity.
Global mobility service: An effective talent attraction & retention strategy
What is global mobility service for construction?
With Vietnam’s growing demand for infrastructure project and widening construction skill gap, global mobility service goes far beyond relocation logistics. It is a structured workforce solution designed to enable construction enterprises to access, deploy, and retain international talent across borders with operational certainty.
For construction firm, global mobility service often involves:
- Business visa and work permit application
- Temporary Residence Card (TRC) application and/ or renewal
- Compliant monthly payroll service during assignment transitions
Rather than isolated tasks, these elements operate as a coordinated system with defined responsibilities, timelines, and compliance checkpoints.
Why global mobility strengthens talent attraction & retention strategy?
Highly skilled construction professionals evaluate international assignments not only on compensation, but also on how seamlessly the entire relocation journey is managed. Key decision factors include:
- Transparent tax and payroll treatment
- Clear and efficient immigration processes (business visa, work permit, TRC)
- Comprehensive and customized family relocation support
An end-to-end mobility framework processing from work permit, payroll to relocation, delivered through one single contact point, makes employers more competitive when recruiting foreign specialists in construction projects.
Retention is equally impacted, effective mobility service helps construction firms:
- Minimize administrative friction during long-term construction projects
- Ensure ongoing payroll, tax, and statutory compliance
- Support family stability and assignment continuity
By removing complexity and fragmentation, an end-to-end global mobility model allows expatriates to focus on site execution, safety, and knowledge transfer—critical success factors for complex infrastructure and large-scale construction projects.
Choosing the right workforce solution partner
In practice, effective global mobility services for construction require far more than administrative execution. Vietnam’s immigration, tax, and labor frameworks are detailed, frequently updated, and unforgiving when errors occur—particularly for complex, high value infrastructure projects.
In this environment, employers increasingly turn to workforce partners with a proven ability to handle non-standard, high-risk, and time-critical mobility cases—including projects involving large expatriate populations, tight deployment timelines, evolving regulations, or heightened compliance exposure.
With nearly two decades of operating experience in Vietnam, Manpower Vietnam is a trusted partners in end-to-end global mobility service for construction, processing expatriates' tax, payroll, immigrant paperwork, and relocation. We frequently engaged in the most complex global mobility assignments – projects where regulatory ambiguity, cross-border payroll exposure, or family relocation challenges require deep local knowledge and coordinated execution. By approaching global mobility as part of the broader workforce and market-entry planning, Manpower Vietnam helps construction firms deploy international talent with confidence, continuity, and reduced operational risk.
Case study: Supporting expatriate mobility for a large FDI construction project
A world-leading manufacturer of play materials in Europe needs to relocate foreign experts and their families during Covid-19 to Vietnam. This project is representative of the type of high-complexity mobility assignments that construction and industrial employers engage Manpower Vietnam to deliver—where regulatory uncertainty, timeline pressure, and compliance risk converge.
Client profile
- The project is one of the largest FDI projects in Vietnam in the last five years, recognized as a new “green milestone” in foreign investment.
- The client requires an end-to-end global mobility service including Mobility management, Business Visa, Work permit, TRC for expats and their families, alongside with Employees, Payroll, and Benefits administration.
Challenges
- The relocation is conducted during the peak of COVID-19.
- Constant regulatory changes and travel restrictions.
- Limited visibility on documentation, immigration timelines, and tax exposure.
Manpower Vietnam’s solutions
- Provided step-by-step guidance on business visas, work permits, and TRCs.
- Timely and ongoing consultation on regulator and compliance updates.
- Payroll calculation, statutory insurance, and tax consultation for dual-income assignees.
- Employer-of-record support, covering labor contracts and salary payments.
- Special arrangements for family entry, including newborn-related travel and quarantine logistics.
Results
- Continuous deployment of expatriate experts despite regulatory volatility
- Full compliance with immigration, tax, and labor regulations
- Reduced assignment disruption and improved expatriate focus
- Stable execution of a complex, sustainability-oriented investment project
Global mobility as a workforce imperative
Vietnam’s construction industry is becoming more complex, more specialized, and more globally connected. As infrastructure projects grow in scale and sophistication, access to international expertise is increasingly critical.
In this environment, global mobility service for construction is a structural capability that enables enterprises to attract global talent, retain critical expertise, and execute infrastructure projects with reduced operational risk.
For large construction firms, treating global mobility as a strategic workforce lever—rather than an administrative burden—creates measurable advantages in talent attraction, productivity, and long-term localization.
Ready to mobilize global experts for your projects in Vietnam?
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Author
Manpower Vietnam
Manpower is a leading global workforce solutions provider, delivering recruitment, staffing, outsourcing, and workforce consulting services across industries. As part of the ManpowerGroup family, Manpower Vietnam combines global workforce expertise with deep local market insight to help organizations build agile, skilled, and sustainable workforces. Through data driven talent solutions and nationwide recruitment networks, Manpower Vietnam supports employers in navigating labor market shifts and addressing critical talent shortages in Vietnam’s evolving world of work.
