HCM City at risk of labor shortage Ho Chi Minh City leads the country in gender balance yet a woman in the child-bearing age has only 1.46 child averagely, lowest rate in the country.   Speaking at the wrapping up of People’s Council session on July 4, city’s Party Chief Nguyen Thien Nhan encouraged city’s women to have two children because proposed the council to assess the achievements and drawbacks of the city’s population policy to adopt measures in the next time. He added in 1960s, a woman in the North Vietnam has six kids averagely. Later, they have fewer and since 1980s, a female has three children. From 2005 until now one woman has two kids only. This rate maintained during 10 years. This proves relative good. The country’s population sector make it policy that one female has 1.8 babies sometimes, Mr. Nhan said. However, the sector should re-consider as South Korean and Japan are facing labor force crisis because the birth rates in the two countries are declining drastically, Party Chief Nhan warned. In reality, a family has many kids , it will face problems including financing yet if the birth rate is too low, it will be detrimental for a country’s growth; accordingly, it is ideal that each woman has two kids. In the National Assembly resolution on socio-economic growth, it will set two goals for the population sectors; one is to maintain birth rate at two kids in a family and second is to remedy sex ratio imbalance. Mr. Nhan said that the present sex ratio at birth is 112 boys to 100 girls in the country while it is 105 boys to 100 girls in HCMC. The city will therefore has low birth rate like South Korean, Singapore, Japan, positioning labor force at risk of shortage and slowdown of the country’s development. Hence, the Party Chief proposed the council to notice the National Assembly to maintain birth rate in the upcoming session. SGGP