Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Emerging tech companies arestill struggling to recruit high quality IT engineers to feed Vietnam’s boomingtechnology industry, despite a steady growth in graduates over the last fewyears.

Director of Vietnam Blockchain Corporation Do Van Longbelieved human resources were one of many issues causing problems for techstart-ups, regardless of their scale.

“A lack of high quality personnel has led to competitionbetween firms to win over talent, causing start-ups to lose people to othersmaking more attractive offers,” Long told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

“That can more or less decide the success of start-ups.”

According to a report by the Ministry of Information andCommunications, in 2019, Vietnam has 149 out of 237 universities, or about 62percent, offering tech majors like Information Technology (IT), Electronics andTelecommunications and Information Safety.

The total enrolment for IT-Communications majors last yearreached 55,000, marking an increase of 12 percent compared to that of theprevious year.

Such a number, however, is far from being able to meet themarket demand for tech-savvy employees.

A report by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific andIndustrial Research Organisation in 2018 forecasts that Vietnam will need up to1 million IT engineers by 2020.

The communications ministry also sets the target of having1.3 million IT workers by 2025, most of whom are highly skilled professionals.

Nguyen Anh Thi, Director of the Information Technology Parkat Vietnam University, HCM City, said the country’s IT industry in the lastdecade gradually moved up the chain from doing mainly software outsourcing toparticipating in work of higher added value, like creating new products andservices.

“It is a necessary development, as we can’t rely on cheaplabour forever,” he said.

Many tech companies and groups have already preparedthemselves for such change, but manpower remained one of their biggestchallenges, Thi said.

Investing more on training engineers would be the onlyreasonable way to tackle the shortage, but it should not be only in highereducation, said University of Natural Sciences vice principal Dr Tran Minh Triet.

“It’s not necessary to wait till undergraduate or postgraduate levels to start teaching students information technology skills,” hesaid.

“Young students in high school or even secondary schools canapproach and learn the basic foundations of IT to discover if it’s theirpassion and the very career they want to pursue in the future.”/.