Improving rural garment worker skills

Garment and textile businesses are proving proactive in vocational training- Photo: Can Dung

About 2.5 million workers are currently employed by the garment and textile sector with the workforce increasing thanks to higher levels of rural workers being recruited

However, the employed rural workers are weak in terms of skills compared to their urban counterparts, said Deputy General Director of the Nha Be Garment Corporation JSC Le Thi Ngoc Dieu.

According to Chairman of the Management Board of the Hung Yen Garment Corporation JSC Nguyen Xuan Duong, unskilled workers have affected productivity, which has increased by just five percent annually, averaging just 60 percent of Thailand by comparison.

The sector is facing labor shortage in every segment except for garment making and fiber working, with industrial workers only account for 15 percent of the total 2.5 million workers. There are also no vocational training units providing vocational training for the sector, especially fashion designing.

Recognizing these shortcomings, garment and textile businesses have focused on vocational training.

The most difficulty in training rural workers is how to change their working style. The Nha Be Garment Corporation JSC has applied several training methods including hands-on and lean manufacturing with a view to get rural workers used to industrial practices. Thanks to these methods, the company has improved its employees in terms of skills, meeting corporate production and trading demands, said Le Thi Ngoc Dieu.

According to Chairman of the Management Board of the Nha Be Garment Corporation JSC Pham Phu Cuong, human issues are viewed as one of great obstacles to the garment and textile sector in terms of taking advantage of the country’s new trade agreements. “We used to prioritize investment in production and market expansion; however, we have recently stopped investing and focused on improving our human resources in terms of skills and knowledge. We plan to train 10,000 employees during the period from 2015 to the end of the first quarter of 2017,” he said.

The Nha Be Garment Corporation JSC is one among a series of companies operating in the garment and textile sector that have involved in internal vocational training activities, with the intention of meeting increasing output and export demands.

In the first half of the year, the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group rolled out several training programs including three courses training 69 directors for affiliates organized in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, and maintenance and merchandising training courses in association with several colleges.

Hai Linh