Vietnam targets to send 110,000 workers abroad The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) has set a target to send 110,000 labourers to work abroad in 2018, with 40 percent being women.    The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) has set a target to send 110,000 labourers to work abroad in 2018. (Photo: nld.com.vn)  The ministry will try to maintain traditional labour markets like the Republic of Korea, Japan and Taiwan (China). This year, it will focus on increasing quality of the workers to ensure competitiveness and incomes. MOLISA Deputy Minister Doan Mau Dieu said that the Department of Overseas Labour should study to make recommendations for the amendment of the law on Vietnamese workers working overseas under contracts while renewing inspection work. Solutions should be deployed to strictly manage and protect the interests of Vietnamese labourers working in foreign countries, he noted. Last year, over 134,700 workers went to work abroad, including 53,340 female workers. The figure exceeded the annual plan set for 2017 by 28.3 percent. This is also the fourth consecutive year that the number of workers sent overseas has surpassed the 100,000 benchmark. Taiwan led in hiring Vietnamese guest workers with 67,000 people in 2017, nearly half of the total number of Vietnamese workers overseas. As of the end of 2017, the number of Vietnamese workers working in Taiwan stood at 206,184, with 87 percent employed in industrial manufacturing and 13 percent in social services.  Japan was the second largest market for Vietnamese guest workers, receiving 54,504 workers in 2017, up 36.47 percent from 2016, bringing the total number of Vietnamese trainees in Japan to over 100,000, the highest among 15 countries sending trainees to Japan. Other labour markets receiving large numbers of Vietnamese workers were the Republic of Korea (over 5,100 workers), Saudi Arabia (3,626), Malaysia (1,551), Algeria (760) and Romania (683). The results were attributable to the MoLISA’s efforts like organising a conference with 280 labour export enterprises to remove bottlenecks in the work and discuss measures to improve their operation efficiency and workers’ quality. Last year, the ministry granted licences for 44 more labour export companies and carried out inspections in 29 firms sending workers abroad in contracts. The inspection revealed violations of labour export regulations at 16 companies and five companies had their licenses revoked. Meanwhile, three others were ordered to suspend their operation for 6-9 months. VNA