According to an update on the Vietnamese labour market released by Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in December 2017, there were 1.07 million workers unemployed in the third quarter of the year, showing a decrease of 6,800 workers compared with the previous quarter and 42,900 compared with the same period last year. The unemployment rate of people at working age fell to 2.21 percent.

However, the number of unemployed workers with bachelor’s degrees increased by 53,900 compared with the second quarter of 2017 to 237,000. The unemployment rate for this group increased from 3.63 percent in Q2 to 4.51 percent in Q3 2017.

Several reasons for 237,000 unemployed workers with bachelor’s degree have been identified, and the top three main causes are: (1) training quality; (2) the country’s economic development; (3) the lack of information about the labour market and the imbalance in supply and demand.

It has been said that the major problem lies in an imbalance between supply and demand. The increasingly high percentage of unemployed university graduates is attributed to increased provision, with many new universities established in recent years. A report shows that Vietnam now has 412 universities and colleges, which means each province or city has 6.6 schools. Training establishments offer bachelor’s degree graduates theoretical knowledge while enterprises have high demand for technically skilled workers for production lines. The high unemployment rate among bachelor’s degree graduates, therefore, is related to labour demand of the national economy.

We have seen an increasing number of Vietnamese workers going abroad in the last three years. In the past, only 70,000~80,000 workers went abroad a year, but the figure is now 100,000. Workers participating in these programmes don’t have bachelor’s degrees, rather they are skilled technical workers, and most of them went to Singapore and Japan.

Source: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/193520/unemployed-university-graduates-study-for-doctorate-despite-job-outlook.html