Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam should use part of its sizeable 67 trillion VND (2.9billion USD) unemployment insurance fund to train workers in professionalskills.

This is particularly important for those at risk of losing their jobs becausecompanies have changed their employment criteria, said Bui Sy Loi, Vice Chairmanof the National Assembly’s Committee for Social Affairs during a meeting on March5 on the Vietnam Government Portal.

The meeting focused on how to improve the quality of labourers and cut theproportion of labourers working in the agriculture, forestry and fisherysectors to less than 33 percent of the total labour force by 2025.

To do that, agencies should issue a mechanism to encourage companies to trainlabourers with the skills they needed, he said.

Both companies and labourers would gain from this as companies would not needto recruit new staff and workers would retain their jobs, he added.

“In Singapore, each citizen receives money from the government each month tolearn something new in order to improve their professional skills,” he added.

It’s a good model that we should consider, he said.

Also at the meeting, Truong Anh Dung, Deputy Director of the ministry’s GeneralDirectorate of Vocational Education and Training, said the ministry is workingon a project to improve the quality of human resources and attract morelabourers to the IT sector.

The most important thing is inspiring them to work in the sector, he added.

The directorate should make a short video to show workers what they shouldstudy, where they could work after graduation and how much they could earn, hesaid.

Changing teaching methods to meet global criteria in schools training peoplefor the IT sector is also important, he said.

Dung said the IT sector is lacking about 700,000 workers.

Labour structure shifting

Resolution No 39-NQ/TW, issued January 15 last year by the Politburo, sets atarget that the proportion of labourers working in the agriculture, forestryand fishery sectors will fall to less than 33 percent of the total labour forceby 2025 to serve modernisation.

Dung said to reach the goal, we should train rural labourers with the skillsneeded to operate in hi-tech agriculture and organic agriculture.

Providing rural labourers with the necessary skills to work in the industrialand service sectors was one of the core solutions, he added.

Recently, the Government had directed localities to focus on creating more jobsin the service sector so rural labourers have more opportunities to findemployment, he said.

Loi added that the agricultural sector should be restructured from rice tolivestock./.