ABSTRACT:
This study aims to find out the causes of unemployment problems and how its effects among youth in Viet Nam. Some statistic sources revealed that the unemployment rate of youth in Vietnam dramatically risen to 7.28 percent for the first quarter of 2017 from 6.39 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016. This issue contributes to constitute serious social vices to the nation. Following this, the thesis has collected the data from primary sources using the explanatory approach of previous researchers and the secondary sources from online survey method is conducted through Google Drive and Facebook. As a result, the findings revealed that unemployment among youths in Viet Nam are caused by five main issues were: lack of skills, job selectivity, the imbalance between labor and jobs in the market, level of education as well as the policy from government and enterprises. Besides, the major effects included: poverty and migration, employees lost some of the skills, health disease issue, poor standards of living and high crime rate. Therefore, the suggestion of this thesis is that government should produce the better labor market to the youth where they have much chance showing their self-performance ability in working. In addition, the government should link strongly with enterprises in education and training in order to enable the youth to have the opportunity to learn and develop their skills as well as experience for becoming self-reliance.
Keywords: Causes, effects, youth unemployment, Vietnam.
Unemployment is always a central issue in every societies and economy; especially, in the present time when the speed of socio-economic development is increasing rapidly. Unemployment has always existed in many countries, including developed and developing countries for most of their developmental stages. In Vietnam, that situation has arisen since the country was transformed into a market economy. To compare with the world, although the unemployment rate of Vietnam in recent years is still a modest figure, the serious problem has arisen from the high unemployment rate among youth. Moreover, when the country is entering the golden population structure, youth unemployment is a real social problem, a challenge of development, a loss of opportunities to work, compromising the spirit and binding the capacity of those who are raising many good aspirations for their own bright future and their country. Obviously, young graduates will have to face more competition. While qualified and experienced applicants will continue to be employed. This is the reason due to the difference in capacity between the needs of the employer and the ability of the new job seeker; only the most suitable candidates can survive and be recruited. Actually, this is a big concern for Vietnam, as it needs to create one million jobs each year to maintain a low unemployment rate. Based on the above mentioned practical problems, a question is asked that what has led to unemployment in young and how is its influence?
Definition of unemployment
According to the definition of United Nations in 1992, youth is identified as young people aged from 15 to 24 years old. Besides this, some countries from the Central and Eastern European had transition economies; the limitation of age is lower and usually correlate with the least possible time of school-leaving age in the statutory. However, in Viet Nam, this age range differs with those of youth ages who indicated by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Vietnamese
Youth Federation. Following this, the definition of Vietnamese youth extends the youth age bracket to 29 years of age and some cases that the age can even extend to 35 years of age. That mean, the youth definition varies distinctively for each country and depend upon the element of culture, institutional framework, and political system.
2. Overview of Vietnam unemployment situation
Vietnam is developing its market economy with the socialist orientation. Actually, in recent years, the growth of economic sectors has become stronger and stronger than ever before. However, the strong, diverse and complicated development of the market economy has posed many challenges such as the labor selection, rejection of the market lead to loss of jobs and unemployment of employees, especially among youth. According to the statistic data from the World Bank, the Vietnam youth unemployment rate was 6.26% in 2010. After that, this rate dropped dramatically to 5.09% in 2012, but then rose to 6.39% and 7.28% in 2016 and January 2017 respectively. These data graphically is demonstrated by figure 1 under. Though, these numbers mentioned above still do not take into account the existing problem of employment in Vietnam that many young people have to accept the jobs with the lower education and skills requirements than their own. Even though the income is also lower than possible, they need it in order to maintain a life with a limitation of spending.
In particular, some information from The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Welfare of Vietnam showed that unemployment in comparison with the first months of 2016 is increasing both in number and proportion, especially among youth people who have a high level of education. There is a fact that, young people who have the tertiary education level, college level or higher have the highest unemployment rates. The recent statistics in the third quarter of 2016 shown that approximately 1.2 million people of labor age are unemployed, it rose than 29 thousand people in comparison with the previous quarter. Of the unemployed, it is estimated to have numbered 456.2 thousand people reached technical expertise and the vast majority of these (202.3 thousand people) were in the tertiary education level group, colleges level (122.4 thousand people) and vocational college level (73.8 thousand people). The number of long-drawn unemployed (over 1 year) constituted more than 22.6 percent of the total unemployed.
3. Literature review
Behrman (1993) has argued that the level of individual skills will affect the prospects of person's relative occupation. Skills also concentrate on the quality determination in the job, above all through their impact on salaries.
Altman (2014) claims that educated youths with high degrees will have more chances to become international citizens who can use their competencies across the boundary and, easily they may get a formal work locally or abroad.
On the other hand, Callaway (1971) also has been argued that, in many countries, the speedy increase in the size of formal education has been an important element for the growth of unemployment among young. This strong extension took place in agreement with the trust in general that strongly goes up in the education system could support to generate the growth of an economy.
Andre (1980) claimed that youth with multiple social-economic disadvantages when they have a low education attainment. Especially, young girls without education usually fall into the case with early pregnancies. The result for the children of a young girl who unmarried or became a single mother may also be important, as they can be growing up so fast in a period of poverty, particularly if the young mother has no marketable skills or no financial from fathers child to support.
George Ogola (October 1994) analyzed some natures of unemployment in Toronto and the impact of some selected variables on increasing employment. He claimed the jobless issue to elements like selectivity among school leavers whose prospect as well as aspirations are to gain modern sector employment in spite of the limitation of lucky chances in the major.
Lincoln (2007) identifies that policies like structural adjustment which involve reducing costs, shading labor or freezing public sector salaries and cutting down the work through limiting public services directly affect youth so much. He added that governments tend to be excessively bureaucratic which cause an unnecessary delay for youth to at least start their own businesses hence remaining unemployed.
Thai Minh Trung (2016) states that unemployment will have the serious psychological health diseases issue impact on young people. In other words, they become less confident and stressed.
According to Balunzi (2001) argues that youth who fail to get jobs end up in urban slums and streets and engage in unproductive activities like prostitution, drugs and substance abuse. Many young people experience serious difficulties during this transition period.
On the other hand, Owen (2009) also argues that the implications of unemployment for young people may include poverty, migration to urban areas, homelessness and housing problems, rising crime rates in some areas, lack of youth participation in society and low morale among young people.
4. Research methodology
4.1. Questionnaire design
In this study, to base on the literature review of much previous research related to the topic. The study has designed the scale of questionnaire including 9 questions which separate into 3 parts: demographic, the factors of causes and the elements of effects. In addition, the quantitative study methodology has used the base in the online survey through social media and Microsoft Excel 2007 and SPSS 16.0 software to analyze.
The online survey is designed by Google Driver and sends it to 141 respondents who have a Facebook account. In fact, it was selected randomly from 3 areas in Viet Nam, amongst who were 63 males and 78 females in order to evaluate two main factors are the cause of youth unemployment and its effect on youth. The scale of the question was converted to five points in Liker-type (1: Strongly agree, 5: Strongly disagree). The study was carried out in March 2017.
When it comes to the reason for choosing the online survey, it can be explained that there are several advantages of using online questionnaires. Firstly, the online survey is an effective tool. The respondents can quickly complete the questionnaire anytime and anyplace they want. Secondly, the web survey not only can help the author efficiently save the cost of the study, but also looks friendlier by transforming paper format into an electronic medium. Thirdly, the different answer will provide the high reliability to the researcher because it is carried out randomly from many different areas through the Internet. Fourthly, the type of online survey continuously improved to fit with the user. Specifically, the participants can easily get the link of online web and then they just answered the questionnaire by the use of a tick in the provided space/box. Finally, the online survey tool can help the researcher to collect the data easily and quickly by the excel file which is performed fully, clearly and in detail.
4.2. Sample size
In this case, the sample size was collected from 141 respondents who were chosen randomly in ages from 18 to above 40 years. Speaking of the reason why the researcher divides each age group for the questionnaire mentioned above, it can be explained that because the working age is determined by the characteristics of the different countries, the researcher will select age groups that are appropriate for the country in which they will conduct the study. In Vietnam, most young people have completed full-time schooling at high schools and universities so the unemployment rate is widespread at the age of 18 years old. Therefore, the age group of 18 is chosen. Moreover, some people who over 40 years old were included because they already knew most negative activities done by youth due to unemployment and they also have the concern in youth affairs in the community. Importantly, due to the limitation of time and geography space, the study has to conduct the survey through Facebook account, so the researcher just able to collect the answer from friends list who over 18 years old.
5. Discussion of finding
The table above showed respondents by gender and age range. Of these 55.3% (78) were female and 44.7% (63) were male. The imbalance of data collection due to the survey is done randomly on the Internet through Facebook. However, based on the data, it can be seen that it was not difficult to access some of the female youths who aged from 18 to 24. They can be guessed to be unemployed and is processing to seek the job. That why they just stay at home, carry out household chores and have more time to use the Internet than male. Too, this also can explain that the unemployment is more widespread among the 18 to 24 year age range. It was looked for that this is the age when most youths have completed the full-time schooling in school and start to seek the jobs for the long journey. Table 2.
From the table above, it can be seen that most of the respondents argued that lack of skills and job selectivity are the main causes of the high unemployment rate among youth, about 66% and 59.6% respectively. On the other hand, 56.7% respondents argued overcapacity of labor but the lack of works is the major issue of unemployment in youth while 51.1% respondents stated that level of education was the problem of youth unemployment in society. The lowest rate is 43.3% claimed that overcapacity of works but lacks of labors are the cause of unemployment in youth. Eventually, this can explain that the most important key to getting a job is the experience in working. As an alternative, in order to get an expected job, the students need not only a certainly level of education but also real participation in tasks. Table 3. 
The table above describes the effect elements of unemployment among youth. It can be seen that most of the respondents argued that poverty and migration and loss of some skills are the main effects of the high unemployment rate among youth, about 66.7% and 58.9% respectively. On the other hand, 56% respondents argued that health disease is the major issue of unemployment in youth while 50.4% and 48.2% respondents stated that poor standard of living and the crimes affected youth unemployed. The lowest rate is 43.3% claimed that immoral and employment gaps are the impact of unemployment in youth. Obviously, when the unemployment problem occurred, the laborers are lost an amount of income. Thus, this issue caused the serious poverty to the community. And, to survive in society, they will tend to do migrate to another area for finding any job or any way to earn the living cost. Finally, day by day, their professional skills also will be disappeared.6. Conclusion
Actually, after the completion of the study, the author realized that lack of skills in working, level of education, the high requirement in job selectivity and overcapacity of labor but the lacks of works were the main factors of cause unemployment among youth. In these factors, lack of experience, as well as skills in working is the most important causes of unemployment among youth. There is a fact that, although Vietnam economic is developing recently, more than thousands of new students graduate per year, only a fraction of the students are caught in the recruitment's eye simply because new graduates have almost no skills to work. While studying, most of the students believe that in order to meet the requirements of the job, they need to have many certificates of the computer and foreign language. So, they just pay attention to study at centers to obtain degrees. However, in practice, the enterprises always focus on working skills, the best way to manage the difficult case, communication skills and the command of teamwork. In fact, the companies usually offer a probationary period of one to two months, and during this time, there are not many real candidates who are capable of handling the job. Even the best graduates with high marks, these students are still not appreciated and not accepted. As a result, there is a current paradox in existence that although the number of graduates has a high unemployment rate, companies are still short of workers, because the students are unskilled to meet the needs of employers.
On the other hand, regarding the effects of unemployment among youth, it can be realized by five main elements that the person lose their working skills, health diseases issues, poor standard of living, increase in violent crimes and poverty and migration in society. In these elements, working skills is lost and poverty and migration in society are two big problem of affects unemployment among youth. Economically, unemployment has been associated with poverty and migration. The high unemployment rate not only causes big damage to the economy but also causes many difficulties for the laborers' life. Obviously, even though the unemployed have no ability to produce products but they still have to spend a certain amount, especially in youth who have the higher consumption than others age. Assuming that the unemployed have been worked, they can create a minimum value of consumption. That means the government will not lose thousands of billions of dollars for unemployment each year. Moreover, unemployment not only affects the economy but also causes migration in society. The unemployed tend to go to other areas to find a job, which causes a lot of housing fluctuations as well as increasing social evils. Clearly, when it comes to the causes of social evils, the one finds that unemployed are significantly involved in social evils such as drugs, theft, prostitution, gang-raping in black societies, etc. simply because it can bring income to the participants. While other pathways to create the job to them are closed, the path to social evils is generally easy and difficult to be controlled and prevented. Working skills are gradually lost for this reason.
7. Suggestion to youth unemployment
Based on the conclusions of the study, some suggestions are made following:
Firstly, education in Vietnam is currently not linked to training and demand. Enrollment quotas are set by each school to meet the teaching needs but do not reach the actual employment demand by industry. Therefore, the number of students graduating every year is much higher than the actual needs as well as the number of student surplus will be unemployed. The cost of training a student to complete the entire course is not small, so when the student is unemployed for a few years after graduating as a case where their knowledge gradually decreases. That mean most efforts and money invested is wasted. In addition, in previous years, many new universities have applied for the establishment. The schools also applied to open branches in different localities in order to go up the enrollment quotas. However, this expansion is large to increase profitability without aiming to improve teaching effectiveness; it leads to raising the number of unemployed students. As a result, a new educational model which has the interaction between theory and practice need to build. Specifically, the school should link with the enterprise to create the employment opportunities for students in order to help them to see the real skills in working as well as improve their professional knowledge. It is essential for students to quickly grasp the nature of the work they have chosen.
After that, the legal bodies should implement the policies to solve the employment of young people by target groups. For youth groups who graduate from universities, colleges, and vocational secondary schools, they should be used in the economic sectors which have the high requirement of labor quality, preferential policies and employing talents. For those youngsters who have finished school, they have no conditions to study higher, so they need the policies to support vocational training, career development, and agricultural production. In addition, the industrial zones should be developed in order to attract a lot of laborers who are not highly qualified for works. To give the priority to send laborers for working in the direction of expanding the market, encouraging the development of household economy and creating jobs among youth. For the unemployed youth group, it is the necessary to encourage the development of private economic sectors, small and medium enterprises, individual business households and small businesses to attract more labor and create jobs for them. To adopt the policies to support and create favorable conditions for unemployed youth to access the preferential loans for self-employment and to increase income for youth in order to improve their living standards.
Finally, the government should have policies in completing the unemployment insurance system to support unemployed. There is a fact that, unemployment insurance may support to ensure the lives of workers as well as provide the helping for them in order to find out a job and return to work soon as soon as possible. Besides, unemployment insurance also helped to reduce the burden on the budget of states and enterprises. In Vietnam, due to unemployment situation just being acknowledged in recent years, so the establishment of the unemployment fund is in the early stages of research and has many difficulties as well as complexities. One of the difficulties is the source of the fund, determining beneficiaries and the entitled time. In the short term, due to the fund's limitations, unemployment insurance is intended only for people who lose their jobs and only cover for a certain period of time while workers are still unable to find a job. In the farther future, unemployment insurance is necessary for both young and old who do still not look for the job.
REFERENCES:
1. Alao. 2005. Principles of Economics. Darkol Press and Publishers, Isolo, Lagos.
2. Balunzi, J. M. MP. 2001. Vision for youth in the 21st century a history of gender labor and social development. Kampala: Ministry of Gender Labor and Social Development.
3. Callaway. A. 1971. Education, planning and unemployment. Published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris.
4. Commonwealth Youth Program. 2007. Report on youth unemployment, London, Commonwealth Secretariat.
5. Commonwealth Youth Program. 2007. Young people and society. Published by the Commonwealth Secretariat, London.
6. European Youth Forum 2013. Policy paper on youth unemployment. Adopted by the Council of Members on 19, 20th April, 2013, Brussels.
7. Fajana, S. 2000. Functioning of the Nigerian Labor Market, Lobefin and Company, Lagos.
8. General statistics office of Viet Nam, published by World Bank 2016.
9. Hoang Trong, Chu Nguyen Mong Ngoc 2008, Analysis of data with SPSS 2, Hong Duc Publishing House, p24.
10. International Labor Organization - 2005. Report on youth unemployment, Los Angeles, American Bar publishers.
11. Nial.H. 2001. Youth labor markets: Regional report for South, East Asia and the Pacific: Published by World Bank Oct.2006.
12. Ogola, G.S. 1994. New vision: October, 2nd 1994: Tororo by Kigaya.
13. Oladele PO, Akeke I, Oladunjoye O. 2011. Entrepreneurship Development: A Panacea for Unemployment Reduction in Nigeria. Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences (JETEMS) 2 (4): 251-256 © Scholarlink Research Institute Journals, 2011 (ISSN: 2141-7024). jetems.scholarlinkresearch.org
14. Owen, A. 2009. Gender and Development, London. Published by the Commonwealth Secretariat.
15. Uganda Bureau of Statistics. 2001. Report on youth unemployment: Entebbe: Published by Hajji Hatibu.
16. Unemployment and Psychological complications - Thai Minh Trung, Associate Professor in Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, 2016.
17. United Nations Population Fund. 2005. Statistical charts and indicators on the situation of youth, New York, United Nations.
18. Niall, OHiggins. 2001. Youth unemployment and employment policy,. MPRA Paper No. 23698 posted 10. July 2010.
NGUYÊN NHÂN VÀ TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA THẤT NGHIỆP TRONG GIỚI TRẺ VIỆT NAM
ThS. Phan Thục Uyên Nhung
Công ty TNHH Binitis (Khách sạn Vanda Đà Nẵng)
ThS. Nguyễn Thị Hiếu Hân
Trường Cao đẳng Thương mại Đà Nẵng
TÓM TẮT:
Mục đích của nghiên cứu này nhằm tìm hiểu rõ nguyên nhân cũng như những tác động có liên quan của tình trạng thất nghiệp trẻ tại Việt Nam hiện nay. Trên thực tế, một số nguồn dữ liệu thống kê cho thấy rằng tỷ lệ thất nghiệp trong giới trẻ đã gia tăng nhanh chóng từ 6.39% trong quý thứ 4 năm 2016 lên 7.28% trong quý đầu tiên năm 2017. Vấn đề này thực sự góp phần tạo nên những tệ nạn xã hội nghiêm trọng đối với quốc gia. Theo đó, bài luận đã tiến hành thu thập dữ liệu từ các nguồn chính sử dụng phương pháp giải thích của các nhà nghiên cứu trước đây và các nguồn thứ cấp từ phương pháp điều tra trực tuyến được tiến hành thông qua Google Drive và Facebook. Kết quả cho thấy, năm vấn đề được xem xét là nguyên nhân chính gây nên thất nghiệp ở thanh niên Việt Nam, cụ thể là: thiếu kỹ năng, tính chọn lọc công việc, mất cân đối giữa lực lượng lao động và việc làm trên thị trường, trình độ học vấn cũng như chính sách của Chính phủ và doanh nghiệp. Bên cạnh đó, các tác động chính bao gồm: nghèo đói và di cư, người lao động bị mất một số kỹ năng cần thiết, vấn đề sức khỏe bệnh tật, mức sống kém và tỷ lệ tội phạm cao. Do đó, đề xuất của nghiên cứu này mong muốn Chính phủ nên tạo ra thị trường lao động tốt hơn cho thanh niên, nơi mà họ có nhiều cơ hội được thể hiện khả năng tự hoạt động của họ. Ngoài ra, Chính phủ nên tạo cơ chế liên kết chặt chẽ với các doanh nghiệp trong giáo dục và đào tạo để cho phép các bạn trẻ có cơ hội học hỏi và phát triển các kỹ năng, cũng như kinh nghiệm để tự lực.
Từ khóa: Nguyên nhân, tác động, thất nghiệp trẻ, Việt Nam.
Xem tất cả ấn phẩm Các kết quả nghiên cứu khoa học và ứng dụng công nghệ số 5 + 6 tháng 4/2018 tại đây