A large quality of skilled labour remains in high demand for development zones across the country, especially the Saysettha Development Zone in Vientiane, according to a senior official at the zone.
Deputy General Manager of the Lao-China Joint Venture Investment Co., Ltd., Mr Kiengkham Phoutchanthavongsa, spoke to Vientiane Times during a visit to the zone recently.
It can be observed that we have a large quantity of workers but they are still insufficient to meet the high demands for the labour market, especially in the industrial sector, Mr Kiengkham said.
When we developed the zone as an industrial city, certainly the labour force should be available for industrial systems. Therefore, the limited number of those skilled workers is a big concern for the zone.
At present, more than 300 Lao and foreign workers are employed in the zone.
It is divided into two phases, with about 80 percent of Lao workers employed in the period of infrastructure construction and about 60 percent of Lao workers employed in the process of production.
This is because some work requires high level skills so we hired a large number of foreign workers to oversee the work.
But we need 100 percent Lao workers in some work areas, Mr Kiengkham added.
However, in the future we plan to develop more skilled workers if there is a lot of investment in the zone.
At present, about 35 Chinese and foreign companies have already moved into the zone to invest in agricultural product processing, clean energy production, logistics, commerce and trade, machine manufacturing and industrial construction.
In addition, the zone is preparing to develop residential land, including a hospital and school, in the second phase of the project. Therefore, the zone needs to invest in constructing a vocational school to train workers and supply them to those industries.
In addition, it will cooperate with vocational schools in Vientiane to train skilled labour and supply them to factories in the zone, Mr Kiengkham explained.
The Lao government is promoting and developing skilled labour in the country to meet the demands of both local and international labour markets.
According to the labour and social welfare sector, over the past ten months of 2015-2016, the sector has provided jobs for 2,468 people and exported 45,768 people to work abroad in commercial agriculture, industry and services.
In 2017, the government will try to create more jobs and limit unemployment to around 2 percent among the Lao population.
In addition, they will strive to develop about 131,600 skilled workers, improve job recruitment services and build labour information systems to enable a balance between labour demand and supply, especially for the new labour force of 143,000 people.
Source: Vientiane Times
