Wave of layoffs challenges Vietnamese IT students

Experts say the wave of technology layoffs that has come to Vietnam will make the market difficult for the next 1-2 years, and final year students will face challenges in finding jobs.

At the career orientation day organized by the University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University, Hanoi on October 22, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Duc, senior expert at Trapets Vietnam, Scandinavian Software Park, frankly shared the challenges facing the wave of layoffs from companies in the technology sector with more than 1,000 students.

A wave of tech layoffs swept Silicon Valley after major companies like Twitter (now X) restructured and after Covid-19. Not only in the US, the wave has reached many places like Europe, Japan, South Korea and is starting to spread to Vietnam.

Citing data from ChatGPT and Google, Mr. Duc said that from the end of 2022 until now, there have been about 380,000 layoffs, accounting for approximately 1.9% of about 20 million global technology employees.

"The number 1.9% is not too big, but layoffs mean no more recruitment," Mr. Duc said, adding that this poses many challenges for students majoring in Information Technology for at least the next 1-2 years .

Mr. Duc said that in the period of 2020-2021, when Covid-19 first appeared along with the fear of FOMO - fear of missing out on opportunities, being left behind in the Covid storm, technology companies recruited massively, salaries for employees also increased dramatically, one and a half times higher than previous years. This made current final year students, when they started choosing a career, see this industry as very hot and choose it a lot.

But so far, the wave of layoffs has greatly affected Vietnam because the Vietnamese market is mainly for product processing. When foreign companies no longer hire, there is no more work, leading to cuts. There are companies with a scale of 100 employees now only have 10, some places even have to close.

The recent massive recruitment and high salaries by technology product manufacturing companies have resulted in the failure of product manufacturing companies to attract talent. At that stage, these companies "seemed to be suffocated".

This reality means that there are not as many jobs in the technology sector as before. "IT Jobs", a website specializing in IT recruitment, usually has 1,500 job postings, but now there are only more than 700. Every year, there are many job postings for inexperienced personnel or internship positions, but now most of them require experience. Mr. Duc described the current situation of technology recruitment in Vietnam as "quite bleak".

Students collect information on job opportunities from companies. Photo: Duong Tam

The expert points out some of the major challenges students face. First, they have to compete with the experienced laid-off workforce. With more life pressures than new graduates, this group is willing to lower their requirements to get hired.

In addition, the trend of working remotely is no longer there, freelancer prices are falling, companies are under pressure to tighten spending, the number of startups is decreasing and small companies are closing down or in maintenance mode.

"You are facing a huge challenge when the market is at its lowest point. The situation may be better next year but you still need to make more efforts to get a good job," said Mr. Duc.

Associate Professor Pho Duc Tai, Head of the Faculty of Mathematics - Mechanics - Informatics, University of Natural Sciences, shared the same opinion. He said that job opportunities for new graduates this year will be very difficult. It is predicted that the rate of students majoring in Information Technology at the university having jobs after 3 months of graduation will no longer be at 95% as in previous courses.

However, Mr. Duc and Mr. Tai both said that this difficulty is only temporary and the most difficult will be in the next 1-2 years.

According to Mr. Duc, despite the difficulties, big companies are still very thirsty for truly talented human resources and are willing to spend money to recruit. "Like in football, they recruit good players, at least so that their opponents do not have someone as good as them," he likened.

Therefore, he believes that students need to be equipped with three advantages: good qualities, good schools and good instructors. Students also need to know at least three popular programming languages ​​in Vietnam: Java script, C#, Java; and three very good development fields: Enterprise Application (application for businesses), Game and AI. He also noted that students need to be equipped with three skills: teamwork, research, code reading; and proficiency in three tools: Git, Jira and Email.

Mr. Duc advises new graduates at this time to put salary issues below other criteria, and apply to product companies to develop themselves in particular and the IT industry in general.

Students chat with business representatives on career orientation day October 22. Photo: Duong Tam

With 25 years of experience, Mr. Tran Luong, CEO of Financial Software Solutions Joint Stock Company (FSS), advises students to first equip themselves with good expertise and technology, including logical thinking, the ability to learn and grasp new technology "because technology changes very quickly".

In addition, students also need to pay attention to working style: from the ability to work independently such as planning and managing work progress, to being proactive in reporting progress, discussing when problems arise, the ability to work in groups, communicate, exchange information, and not be afraid of difficulties.

On the school side, Mr. Tai admitted that communication is a skill that students in the Information Technology group need to improve a lot. In addition, IT students should not be subjective, thinking that this industry is hot and neglect their studies, leading to an unstable knowledge foundation.

"Organizing career guidance days is also an opportunity for the school to listen to feedback from businesses, thereby having better orientations in training, helping students find better jobs," said Mr. Tai.

On this occasion, many large enterprises such as FPT Software, FPT IS, VNPT, Bosh Global Software Technology Vietnam and many other enterprises joined together to exchange, share recruitment information, organize mock interviews, helping students grasp market requirements.

Le Quang Dat, a third-year student majoring in Data Science, said he collected information from all the companies participating in the career orientation day with the goal of finding an internship position in his final year and seeing what technology companies need in the context of tightening recruitment.

"Currently, my English and communication skills are not good. I also do not have experience working on real projects. I will try to develop in my final year to have a good job right after graduation," Dat said.

The University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University, Hanoi enrolls about 1,800 students annually. The majors to meet the human resource needs of Information Technology of the university include Computer Science and Information, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, Mathematics and Information Technology, Electronic Engineering and Information Technology, Geospatial Information Science.

Duong Tam

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