48.3 percent of the surveyed companies said that wages for new IT hires surged by 10-20 percent over the past 12 months.
December 2018 – 48.3 percent of the companies surveyed said that wages for new IT hires surged by 10-20 percent over the past 12 months, according to survey from ITviec.com, the leading recruitment site for Vietnam’s IT sector.
Specially, 26.7 percent said offered salary went up more than 20 percent while 21.7 percent said payments for new IT workers rose by up to 10 percent this year.
Despite rapid salary increases, demand for IT workers remains hot. Over 75 percent of respondents reported plans to grow their IT teams by 10 percent to 50 percent in 2019.
Source: Ominext
Vietnam’s scored for No. 1 in IT advantage because of “good tech talent at very competitive cost”, in comparing with other destinations.
Despite higher salaries Vietnam remains competitive, employers are still thirsty for high-quality IT people. The most in-demand job in the industry is senior developers who can think creatively and propose ways to solve problems. 51.7 percent of the IT companies said senior developers is the position they hire most.
Junior or middle developers who can follow instructions and write clean code came second, with 40 percent of the firms responded.
Around three quarters (75.4 percent) of the companies surveyed said that finding right talent for team/hiring fast enough is their biggest growth constraint. Only 13 percent said finding more customers is their biggest problem although 85 percent of respondents reported that the majority of their customers are outside Vietnam.
IT sector blooms significantly in 2019
More than half of tech firms operating in Vietnam say the country has great advantages as a IT hub, including high-skilled programmers, competitive labor costs and political stability.
In the survey, 52 percent of foreign IT companies said they had considered other countries before choosing to locate in Vietnam.
95.7 percent of employers recognized Vietnam worthily in terms of good quality yet lower labor costs than other countries considered. Therefore, 34.8 percent agreed that was the No.1 advantage of Vietnamese IT industry.
Not surprisingly, 82.6 percent of them scored Vietnam’s IT engineers higher than their peers in other countries in terms of technical skill level. Besides, 21.7 percent recognized that was also the strong advantage of Vietnamese IT sector.
78.3 percent of respondents also said that Vietnam had larger labour pool while 60.9 percent agreed that the general education level is more credible than other destination.
The survey also found that 87 percent of the IT firms scored Vietnam higher than other countries when it comes to political stability. 95.7 percent also agreed that overall cost and value for hiring Vietnamese IT people is also the country’s advantage.
Although Vietnamese IT people are appreciated for their technical skill, 35 percent of surveyed employers told that they need to have “higher level of ability to design and think critically instead of just execute”. Besides, 26.7 percent advised Vietnamese IT programmers to improve their English ability, as there are more and more international projects. Significantly, 15 percent of employers thought that Vietnamese IT people should be more loyal rather than changing job frequently. Only 11 percent of them thought that Vietnamese IT people should improve their technical skill because this is already their strength.
Bright outlook
Prospects for Vietnam’s IT industry are seen bright as 53.6 percent of the tech firms said they plan to grow their IT team by 10-30 percent in 2019 while 26 percent plan to grow their IT team highly by 30 – 50%. Significantly, 8.7 percent of tech firms plan to grow their teams in 2019 by a huge more than 50 percent.
Therefore, there are thousands of opportunities for Vietnamese programmers to fly higher in their career in 2019.
Chris Harvey, CEO of ITviec, said: “Vietnam is becoming a tech hub not only of Southeast Asia, but also the world. Foreign IT companies increasingly are entering Vietnam, and local companies like Foody.vn and VNG are growing rapidly. ITviec.com is proud to help them grow.”
Michael Lobb, Director of Teamscāl Pty Ltd — an Australian-invested company that entered Ho Chi Minh City in 2013, said: “In the last five years, our Vietnam team has moved from being a basic pool of development resources to contributing heavily to creative and management of our Australian company. The level of talent has significantly improved and companies like ITviec have increased our capabilities in recruiting skilled professionals.”
Michelle Koh, Director of Robust Tech House – a Singapore-based firm that comes to Ho Chi Minh City in 2014, said: “The Vietnamese are thirsty for knowledge, hungry to excel and have excellent work ethics and attitude. A for Attitude – this puts them in a class above the rest.”
Download all survey data and photographs of IT working environments here.