While software companies complain that they lack qualified human resources, new graduates have difficulty finding satisfactory jobs. Japan choosing Vietnam as its long-term partner in software development has become the key to solving this human resource-related problem.

Let’s learn Japanese!

A ‘fever’ for IT experts who can use the Japanese language has made Japanese a ‘fashionable’ language at many foreign language training centres in big cities in Vietnam. The numbers of students in Japanese classes at FPT Dong Du, Nicco, and the Japan – Vietnam centres is rising, and most of them are IT experts. Most IT experts said that if they can speak Japanese, they would have the opportunity to get a better salary. The monthly income of a newly graduated programmer is around VND2mil (US$125) but if the programmer can speak Japanese, he can earn a minimum salary of around $200.

Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, who has just graduated from the Information System Faculty of the HCM City’s Van Lang University said, “I wish to work at a Japanese company because Japanese companies’ technology improves very often while they have a professional working style and pay high salaries. I have applied to a company that teaches Japanese and exports manpower to Japan. The net monthly income of a first year is around VND15mil (over $900), much higher than in Vietnam”. Tuan is now a programmer at a private company. He has studied Japanese for over seven months.

Le Thi Thuy Huong, a programmer at an IT company, shared the same view as Tuan. “I will begin studying Japanese next month to have the opportunity to work for companies outsourcing software to Japan at a higher salary or go to Japan to work. It is really attractive and the driving force encouraging me to learn this language,” Huong said.

Japanese companies are investing strongly in IT application. In the future, they may have a shortage of around 70,000 programmers. Ta Anh Thang, Director of the FPT Dong Du Human Resources Development Centre, said that China is currently Japan’s largest software outsourcing market. To diminish its dependence in this market, Japan needs a counterpart to make the balance under the model “China + 1”. Vietnamese programmers are now in the sights of Japanese companies because of their qualifications and the cultural closeness between the two countries. Japanese companies have thought of teaching Japanese to Vietnamese IT engineers and bringing them to Japan to work.

Mr. Thang said that trainees at his centre’s first Japanese classes have come to work in Japan and they have quickly integrated in the new working environment. This year FPT Dong Du plans to open free Japanese courses and send around 200 programmers to Japan to work at initial wage of $1,800 – $2,500/month.

The UK Brain joint venture company was established in June 2005 with the aim of training Vietnamese IT engineers to work in Japan for 2-5 years and to become Bridge Software Engineers for UK Brain, Unico Technos, and Kobekara Japan. The firm has recruited 60 trainees for its first course and will seek 60 others for the second course. According to its plan, 48 trainees will go to Japan in June 2006 but since the need for IT human resources is urgent, 28 trainees will go to Japan in late March.

Challenges - driving force for development

Domestic IT companies still complain that they lack qualified staff. According to Nguyen Thanh Nam, General Director of FPT Software, IT companies should take partial responsibility for this problem.

“We can’t say that the people who work in Japan are more qualified than those who work in Vietnam. They can simply speak Japanese. Why can’t we employ them while the Japanese can?” he said.

He said that the software industry in Vietnam is not really an industry. “An industry needs standards and specialization in production. At present Vietnamese software companies still do everything from start to finish as small-scale production. As a result, we lack human resources for jobs that require higher skills”.

As more and more Vietnamese IT engineers go abroad, domestic companies will have to train and have specific plans for human resources training in the short and long terms, even if they have to change their development orientation in the future.