Once considered the “king of all professions,” IT engineers are facing a wave of unemployment as many people in this industry lose their jobs. There are still 5,000 AI engineer positions waiting to be filled.
IT personnel are facing a crisis of shortage and surplus when technology changes too quickly - Photo: Q.DINH
But on the contrary, many businesses said there is a serious shortage of human resources in the IT industry.
It seems that the IT industry's human resources and recruitment situation has never seen such volatile numbers as it does now.
Assoc.Prof.Dr. NGUYEN HUU HUAN (University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City)
Accept lower salary but still difficult
Mr. Khanh (34 years old, living in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City) is a "hardcore" technology specialist with more than ten years of experience in the profession. Instead of the image of a technology specialist busy in front of a computer screen from morning to night, Khanh has been too idle because he has been unemployed for nearly eight months.
Khanh did not go into detail, but roughly called the past period an abyss, dark days... In mid-April 2024, he received a decision to be fired from the place where he had worked for more than three years. The group gave a very general reason like "low work performance, no longer suitable" even though he had always been evaluated as completing his tasks excellently every month and quarter.
Although he was upset and didn't know how to argue, the support for laid-off people gradually convinced him. Combined with the salary of nearly 80 million VND/month that he had been paid before, Khanh felt a little relieved at first about being unemployed. But on the 16th day of not going to work, the feeling of missing his job was so unbearable that Khanh had to look for a job.
Unfortunately, his CV with more than ten years of experience and having been in charge of many large projects could not save anything. Khanh had been sought after and invited by many places before, but now he had to send his CV everywhere. He waited forever, but only a few places called him for a cursory interview and then went silent without any response.
Meanwhile, programmer Trong Khai (31 years old, living in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City) said he was very upset because the decision to fire him did not give a single reason. He has been unemployed for nearly five months and although he is still upset, he can somewhat guess the reason for losing his job because as a professional, Khai understands the rapid changes in technology.
Being unilaterally fired despite being confident that his skills were quite solid made Khai think even more about the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) contributing to "kicking him out of his chair". Unable to wait, Khai also eagerly looked for a job. Being passive, he accepted a job with a salary less than 2/3 of his previous salary but there was no progress.
"To make ends meet, I have to do many part-time projects at the same time. There's a lot of work, it's quite heavy, and the income isn't much, but what can I do?" Khai confided.
The advent of AI and automation is said to be taking away many jobs of IT personnel - Photo: C.TRIEU
Why?
Ms. Huynh Thi Truong - a specialist of a corporation specializing in searching and providing human resource solutions in Ho Chi Minh City - confirmed that there is a high unemployment rate for IT personnel today. The paradox is that many IT engineers cannot find a job, while many businesses need AI engineers but cannot recruit them.
"The latest data and just my company alone has about a few hundred IT engineers registered to look for jobs. However, the number of vacant positions waiting for AI engineers of businesses is even more terrible with about over 5,000 vacant positions waiting for people," Ms. Truong informed.
Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Huu Huan - Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics, CEO and founder of PROMETE Technology Joint Stock Company - likened the IT engineers creating and developing AI technology to "cutting off their own hands"! AI was born and is gradually taking away many human jobs on a global scale, and Vietnam is no exception.
Many people believe that the first industry with the highest rate of employee turnover must be IT. It is possible to see that not only in the present but also in the future, AI can completely replace the work of programmers and technology engineers. Next could be the design and content creation industries...
AI not only replaces humans and machines, but also has the ability to replace and take away jobs that require the participation of the human brain, creativity and thinking. The forecast of personnel differentiation in the IT field is still fierce, so IT people must update their knowledge of new technologies and upgrade their skills to a higher level as a matter of survival if they want to work.
"Not only programming, but coders also need to know how to solve algorithms. This is similar to the trend of previous industrial revolutions. The transformation from low-skilled manual labor being unemployed, replaced by machines, forcing workers to improve their skills to become highly skilled workers as before," Dr. Nguyen Huu Huan analyzed.
Using AI as a powerful assistant
The AI technology revolution creates opportunities but also challenges. Many opinions say that if Vietnam takes advantage of this opportunity, it will create a certain advantage because AI is a new playing field that is relatively fair to all countries.
Developing AI technology requires more brainpower, while Vietnamese workers are internationally recognized as intelligent and hard-working. This can be seen as an initial advantage to change the strategy from possessing cheap labor to high-quality cheap labor.
AI has become a powerful assistant for IT staff. More than 80% of survey participants conducted by VietnamWorks inTech said they use AI to support their work, with nearly 60% of them using it almost every day.
60% of laid-off IT employees have not found new jobs
The report on the current situation of human resources and recruitment in the IT industry in the AI wave in the period of 2024-2025 conducted by VietnamWorks inTech (under Navigos Group) shows that up to 60% of IT personnel who were laid off in 2023 will still not be able to find a new job in 2024.
This survey was conducted with 1,500 candidates in Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City and 500 businesses in July and August 2024. The report shows that the IT human resources situation in Da Nang is stable. Meanwhile, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have high layoff rates, 18.6% and 17.7%, respectively. Fierce competition and difficulty in finding jobs lead to a low job-hopping rate (32%).
Compared to before, businesses will reduce the rate of layoffs and increase the size of IT staff in 2024, with an increase of about 5-30%. Businesses recruit IT mainly from the software development outsourcing industry, commercial business, technical production, technology consulting, etc.
IT jobs are still "hibernating"Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nhan-su-it-noi-thua-noi-thieu-tram-trong-nganh-nao-can-nguoi-20250210085027732.htm
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