HCM CITY — Many people in HCM City’s rural areas have steady jobs thanks to a city programme to provide free vocational training.

Nguyễn Thị Bảy of Nhà Bè District’s Phước Kiển Commune is one of the beneficiaries.

Speaking to Nhân Dân (The People) newspaper, she said in the past her family had been dependent on agriculture for a livelihood, but its farmlands were acquired for the construction of an industrial park.

Local authorities and the Farmers Association in Nhà Bè District put Bảy in the free vocational training programme for rural residents.

She learnt sewing for three months at the district vocational training centre.

She also received a loan at a low interest rate to buy a sewing machine and was introduced to many customers.

Things have looked up since: She has five sewing machines and employs several people, and her income is more than a dozen million đồng a month.

Nhà Bè has hundreds of such people with steady incomes thanks to the vocational training, the district Economic Division reported.

According to relevant agencies, more than 89 per cent of people who got training in agriculture have jobs.

The city Department of Agriculture and Rural Development reported that 20,652 rural people were trained in agriculture between 2011 and 2016, accounting for 35 per cent of the total number of rural residents who got vocational training.  

The city People’s Committee this year aims to provide training for 12,000 rural residents in the outlying districts of Cần Giờ, Nhà Bè, Củ Chi, Bình Chánh, and Hóc Môn, 3,470 in agriculture and the rest in other vocational skills.

Of them, more than 80 per cent are expected to get jobs.

People covered by State policies, poor and near poor people, ethnic minorities, and disabled people get priority under the training programme.

Those affected by public projects too get priority.

Trainees get travelling and accommodation allowances if the vocational training centre is far from their home.

Trần Ngọc Hổ, deputy head of the department, said the rural vocational training programme helps restructure agricultural and the labour force and improve the incomes and lives of farmers, contributing to poverty reduction.

It is very important that people who get the training should also get jobs, he added.

Trần Anh Tuấn, deputy head of the Centre for Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information, said more than one million people of working age live in the city’s rural areas.

Many have low academic knowledge and skills and need to be trained, he said.

Trainees are offered 65 occupations to choose from, including processing and preservation of agricultural and forest products and seafood and production of construction materials, he said.

The city’s programme dovetails with a national programme to build new rural areas and restructure agriculture.

Nguyễn Trọng Liêm, head of the city Agriculture Development Agency, said the city can fully meet the demand for training in agriculture.

It offers many long-term and professional training programmes at the agricultural promotion centre, bio-technology centre, Management Board of the city’s High-Tech Agricultural Park and elsewhere, he said.

However, they need to constantly update their training programmes, he added. —VNS