Vietnam needs IT engineers to meet 4.0 industrial revolution In Vietnam, IT university graduates are plentiful, but the number of IT engineers qualified to meet requirements in the fourth industrial revolution is insufficient to meet demand.   A report of Navigos, a job consultancy firm, showed that the number of job openings offered in the IT sector in Vietnam increased from 9,000 in 2014 to 15,000 in 2016. In 2016, IT was among the top five industries with the highest recruitment demand. Meanwhile, the demand is predicted to increase even more sharply in the time to come when Vietnam enters the 4.0 industrial revolution era. In Vietnam, IT university graduates are plentiful, but the number of IT engineers qualified to meet requirements in the fourth industrial revolution is insufficient to meet demand. However, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, in its latest report, pointed out that while the worker supply in the IT sector is abundant, the number of workers qualified enough to satisfy requirements in their jobs is not high. One of the important criteria for assessing an applicant’s qualification and knowledge is the professional certificate. Surveys have found that certificates on project management skills, Agile project management, Cisco, Microsoft and Amazon Web Service are the most highly appreciated. Up to 54 percent of employers are willing to pay higher salaries to the candidates who have these certificates. According to Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong from Navigos Search Hanoi, recruitment demand is especially high for developers with Java, SQL, CSS and JavaScript languages. The demand for JavaScrip developers has increased significantly thanks to the mushrooming of online service firms. Analysts said in 2017, technological trends in the world will have an impact on the Vietnamese IT market, including cloud computing, JavaScript, network security, Big Data, Internet of Things and Docker. Regarding the pay for IT engineers, VietnamWorks, in its report released in March, showed developers in Vietnam can earn $1,300-2,000 if they have updated knowledge about the most advanced technologies. The high pay is attributed to the current recruitment demand which is expected to rise. The report showed the results of the survey conducted on 2,400 applicants and 70 recruiters in the IT sector in Vietnam. Fifteen years ago, the demand for IT personnel was mostly for the software outsourcing sector. However, the demand has shifted to the service sector with many software development firms having built their own offices and software development centers in Vietnam. HCMC remains the country’s largest technology center which had 53 percent of total job openings, while Hanoi had 43 percent in 2016. According to MOLISA, Vietnam needs 80,000-100,000 workers for the IT sector every year. Meanwhile, there are 30,000 university graduates every year. “I can introduce job opportunities with pay of $2,500. However, there are not suitable candidates in Vietnam,” Huong from Navigos Search Hanoi.  Kim Chi, VNN