HCM CITY — HCM City authorities will allocate VNĐ67.9 billion (US$3 million) for a five-year (2016-2020) project that will provide vocational training and job counseling to ethnic minority workers.

The project aims to make the ethnic minority workers more competitive in the labour market, official of the Board for Ethnic Minority People said yesterday.

They said target project beneficiaries, estimated at 11,700, will be people of working-age who have not yet been trained.

They will be trained for three months or less at vocational schools or enterprises. Later, they will receive job counseling, be introduced to at least one enterprise or employed by the enterprise where they were trained under the project.

They will also be given loans on preferential loan terms if they want to invest in a business after being trained.

Project beneficiaries, who are required to be registered residents, will receive VNĐ3 million ($133) each for vocational training. This will be paid to schools or enterprises by local labour department branches.

Vương Tái Phước, deputy head of the city’s Board for Ethnic Minority People, said the project would help ensure the rights of ethnic minority residents in the city.

They need to be trained in order to meet demand and to increase their ability to compete in the labour market, Phước said.

The project will increase employment opportunities for ethnic minority residents, especially those living in outlying districts or areas affected by construction projects, he added.

The city has residents belonging to 51 ethnic minority groups. As of last year, more than 500,000 ethnic minority citizens lived in the city, or six per cent of its population, with a majority of them belonging to the Hoa, Khmer and Chăm groups.

Of them, 60.6 per cent were at working-age.

According to statistics released by the municipal People’s Committee in June last year, the incidence of poverty among ethnic minority residents was disproportional to the ratio of the population. As many as 3,850 ethnic minority households accounted for 8.07 per cent of the poor people in the city. Another 1,480 households are estimated to live close to the poverty line.—VNS