ILO: businesses yet to tap full potential of young workers

The school-to-work transition survey was conducted by the General Statistics Office and the ILO in 2015, surveying Vietnamese people aged 15-29. 

It indicated that high school graduates need 17.8 months to land their first stable and satisfactory job, 26%of young workers are overeducated for their jobs while 23.5% are underqualified. 

Nearly two-thirds said they would rather work for the State thanks to job stability. 

Though 58.6% of youngsters have paid jobs, nearly half lack labour contracts. Over one-third are self-employed or work as unpaid family workers before finding a better job. 

About 80% are in informal employment, lacking social welfare access and legal protection. 

The ILO ran the survey in 53 countries from 2012-2016. In Vietnam, it polled more than 2,700 young people in 2012-2013 and over 2,200 in 2015. 

The survey is part of the Work4Youth project – a partnership between ILO and the MasterCard Foundation that aims to strengthen the production of labour market information specific to young people and work with policymakers on interpreting the data.