Students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Technology at the Hà Nội College of High Technology gain hands-on experience in class. — VNA/VNS Photo Diệu Thúy

HÀ NỘI — The quality of Hà Nội's workforce is higher than the national average, but the city has not yet to make full use of its workers' skills.

Commune-level officials and civil servants are under intense pressure as they implement the two-tier local government model.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Trần Đình Thiên, former director of the Việt Nam Institute of Economics, said that Hà Nội had a particular advantage in human resources, with a large concentration of universities, research institutes, experts and entrepreneurs.

The proportion of Hà Nội’s trained labour force reached 53.9 per cent in 2024, significantly higher than the national figure of 28.4 per cent. This is a major advantage in developing an economy based on knowledge, technology and innovation.

But Thiên noted that qualifications are only the foundation; it is new tasks and opportunities that determine whether workers can realise their potential.

He said it was necessary to create sufficiently challenging and valuable jobs in areas such as design, research, product development, management and content creation. Without such opportunities, a highly qualified workforce cannot fully play its role.

Another paradox highlighted by Thiên is that the number of enterprises has grown faster than their capacity to create jobs. From 2015 to 2024, the number of Hà Nội enterprises with production and business results increased by 56.7 per cent, but employment in the enterprise sector rose by only 19.9 per cent, from around 2.16 million to 2.59 million workers.

He added that the decline in the average number of employees per enterprise should not automatically be viewed as negative, because technology-adopting enterprises could generate higher value with fewer workers.

Labour market

From a labour-market perspective, data from the Hà Nội Employment Service Centre show that recruitment demand spans many skill levels. At job fairs, positions requiring college, university or higher qualifications account for about 30 per cent; positions for intermediate-level workers and technical workers account for about 40 per cent; and the remainder are for unskilled workers.

Thus, the labour market needs not only highly qualified workers but also a technical workforce with practical skills. This is an important point for training and human-resource utilisation policies.

This structure shows that job opportunities are becoming differentiated by education, skills and capability. The challenge is how to ensure that workers can access suitable jobs while businesses can find appropriate talent.

Citing other research, Dr. Bùi Phương Đình, deputy director of the Academy of Public Administration and Governance, said that Hà Nội currently has a workforce of approximately 4.2 million people, with 74.3 per cent having received training, of whom 30.19 per cent hold a university degree or higher. However, around 25 per cent of graduates and engineers are working in low-skilled jobs, while there is a shortage of highly skilled technical workers.

This contrast shows that the employment problem cannot be measured simply by the number of people in work. What matters more is whether workers are doing jobs that match their abilities and whether those jobs create value and opportunities for development.

From this perspective, Thiên’s view on creating “sufficiently challenging and valuable jobs” is relevant. An economy with a high-quality workforce but lacking the tasks, products and enterprises capable of absorbing that talent will find it difficult to turn its human advantage into a driver of growth.

From quantity to quality

Lecturers and students conduct experiments and analyse samples in a specialised laboratory at the Faculty of Fisheries, Việt Nam National University of Agriculture in Hà Nội to support research, training and practical skills development. — VNA/VNS Photo Lê Đông

Thiên said that, to create more quality jobs, Hà Nội needed to focus on upgrading its enterprise sector. Businesses are not only employers; they are also environments that turn knowledge, technology and skills into products, markets and income.

Therefore, rather than simply establishing more enterprises, Hà Nội should shift towards supporting businesses that operate substantively, expand in scale and strengthen their capabilities.

In the public sector, Đình proposed building a talent-management ecosystem covering talent identification, recruitment, remuneration, proper utilisation, training, performance evaluation and retention.

According to Đình, during the operation of the two-tier local government model, the commune level is responsible for around 1,475 state-management tasks. The workload and responsibilities of commune-level officials and civil servants have increased significantly. This is also the workforce that directly receives and handles most administrative work involving citizens and businesses.

Requirements for grassroots officials go beyond following procedures correctly. They must also be able to handle work under high pressure and proactively resolve newly emerging issues.

Accordingly, recruitment should be standardised according to job positions, with negotiated remuneration; capable individuals should be assigned to lead key projects; and performance should be evaluated through key performance indicators (KPIs), linked to salaries and emulation incentives.

Thiên emphasised the approach of “valuing talent through sufficiently large missions”. Hà Nội could pilot around 10 task groups, each with a team leader, a user of the results, resources, authority and a timeframe of 12 to 24 months.

He affirmed Hà Nội needed to create a space where knowledge meets missions, missions produce products, and products find markets. This gap must be addressed through connection, experimentation and commercialisation.

For businesses, this means expanding access to data, infrastructure, premises, capital, technology and markets. For workers, it means creating jobs of sufficient quality to make use of their knowledge, skills and experience.

Đình proposed a talent-management ecosystem built on the pillars of selection, remuneration, proper utilisation, training, evaluation and workforce protection.

Hà Nội is addressing its human-resources challenge from both directions: creating more jobs by upgrading enterprises and making better use of its workforce through valuable tasks and job positions.

With 53.9 per cent of its labour force having received training, and with a large concentration of universities, research institutes and experts, Hà Nội’s advantage lies not in how many people hold degrees, but in its ability to turn that resource into productive, business and innovation capabilities. — VNS