'AI engineers and security experts are in high demand and have attractive compensation'

AI is changing the IT human resources landscape

Sieu Viet Group's Vieclam24h platform recently published the report "Summary of Vietnam's labor market in early 2025", which shared its assessment of the IT recruitment market.

To help readers better understand the picture of the Vietnamese IT labor market, VietNamNet reporter recently had an interview with Ms. Dao Thu Phuong, CEO of Sieu Viet Group, the owner of the Vieclam24h platform:

Vieclam24h's survey shows that in the first two months of this year, the recruitment demand for the IT industry decreased slightly by 2% and the number of job seekers increased by 18%. In your opinion, what are the reasons for this situation?

Ms. Dao Thu Phuong: The IT recruitment market in early 2025 is witnessing a gap between supply and demand: recruitment demand decreased slightly by 2%, while the number of job seekers increased by 18%. This situation stems from the following main reasons:

First, IT recruitment demand will begin to slow down from 2023, when the technology market enters a period of adjustment after a period of hot growth and recruitment race. The impact of the global economic recession has forced technology businesses to tighten their budgets and focus on retaining key personnel instead of continuing to expand their teams as before.

Second , the rapid development of AI is changing the IT workforce landscape, especially at lower levels. Many tasks such as basic coding, software testing, or system maintenance can be handled more efficiently by AI, forcing workers, especially new programmers, to upgrade their skills or change careers. The application of AI also makes businesses tend to prioritize performance optimization over new recruitment.

According to CEO of Sieu Viet Group Dao Thu Phuong, the biggest challenge for people working in the IT industry today is not "being replaced by AI", but knowing how to use AI proactively and intelligently. Photo: TN

Thus, the current picture reflects a necessary adjustment period for the market to return to a more balanced state: businesses tighten recruitment, while the supply of human resources, especially young people, increases. This will lead to a story of high competition, requiring candidates to invest more in professional capacity, foreign language skills and the ability to work with new technologies such as AI to maintain a competitive advantage.

What challenges are IT workers and job seekers facing due to the strong development trend of AI, madam?

I believe that AI is not directly replacing IT staff, but is quietly eliminating people who only do jobs that can be easily repeated and modeled. AI is very good at synthesizing, reusing and executing processes that thousands of people have done the same way. Common tasks, with enough data to train models, will quickly be performed by AI more efficiently, faster and at lower cost.

However, what businesses really need from humans, and AI cannot replace, is the ability to create new solutions, to unprecedented problems.

In essence, AI operates on existing input data. For situations where there is no data or that have never happened before, AI cannot generate solutions that can be effectively applied in reality. This is the biggest limitation and also the gap that humans need to fill.

Therefore, the biggest challenge for people working in the IT industry today is not "being replaced by AI", but knowing how to use AI proactively and intelligently.

Let AI do what AI is good at, freeing up time and resources to focus on the creative, strategic, and innovative work that only humans can do. This is not only a way to adapt, but also a prerequisite for workers to maintain leadership in a world of constant technological change.

IT staff are still in the high-income group.

According to Vieclam24, which specific positions are in the most "thirsty" demand for technology human resources?

Despite the slight slowdown, there is still a serious shortage of skilled tech roles and experienced programmers. The most prominent roles are AI engineers, security experts, data engineers, and cloud computing experts, as these are key areas in digital transformation and are hard to find highly skilled people.

Along with AI engineers, data engineers and cloud computing experts, security experts are also a position that is "thirsty" for human resources. Illustration photo: TU

Back-end, Front-end, Full-stack developers continue to be in high demand. DevOps and mobile developers are also in demand in the job market, due to the trend of automation, CI/CD and the need for cross-platform application development.

In addition, personnel proficient in programming languages ​​such as JavaScript, Java, PHP, C#/.NET and Python are still prioritized for recruitment, in which JavaScript is almost a mandatory requirement.

In the context that businesses are still thirsty for high-quality IT human resources, could you please share more about the salary of employees in this industry?

Overall, the IT industry is still among the highest-paid in the current labor market. This is not only due to its highly specialized nature, but also reflects the constant pressure for innovation in this field.

As the pace of technological change accelerates, especially with the rapid development of AI and new platforms, businesses are forced to invest in employees who can learn quickly, master technology, and deploy effectively in a short time. The rapid pace of technological change forces businesses to choose, either to move quickly with truly talented people, or accept being left behind. This is the reason why salaries in the industry are constantly being pushed up, especially in strategic positions.

New technology fields such as AI, cybersecurity, big data or DevOps are in high demand with attractive compensation, especially in specialized roles such as AI engineers or security experts. These positions are not only scarce in human resources, but also play a key role in deploying smart systems, protecting digital infrastructure and enhancing business competitiveness in the digital transformation process.

In terms of income, new employees often have a fairly good starting salary compared to other industries. For those with several years of experience or more, especially if they have practical skills in technology fields that are prioritized by the market, the income level can be much higher than the average.

For technical team leader or middle management positions, income is significantly higher due to the role of technology orientation and connecting engineering with operational strategy.

Although the industry-wide recruitment demand has slowed down in the short term, the problem of high-quality human resource shortage remains. Enterprises are ready to compete with flexible compensation policies such as good salaries, in-depth training opportunities and clear career paths to attract and retain technology talent.

Thank you!

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/ky-su-ai-chuyen-gia-bao-mat-dang-co-nhu-cau-tuyen-dung-lon-va-dai-ngo-hap-dan-2384659.html