Nguyen Ngoc Phuong and her husband Pham Manh Tien were working at a hotel in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City when the pandemic hit. Tien was laid off while Phuong had her salary cut down to 60%.
“But my husband finally found a new job thanks to YesCenter, after 4 months going from one employment office to another”, Phuong exclaimed.
YesCenter is a member of the HCMC Youth Union and one of the many employment centers that are stepping in to help young people secure jobs during difficult times.
When faced with the difficult decision of laying off employees, many enterprises choose to keep the more experienced workers over younger ones, YesCenter’s Deputy Director Nguyen Van Sang said.
“Thousands of new graduates enter the scene every year, which does not make it any easy for young people to compete for jobs”, he added.
The center usually organizes job fairs to introduce young workers to businesses, but these events have been limited severely due to the impacts of Covid.
According to HCMC Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, more than 21,000 companies in HCMC have shut down or dissolved as of early September 2020, mainly in the fields of footwear, tourism and hospitality, catering, transportation, warehousing, wholesale and retail. More than 328,000 workers lost their jobs or had to work alternate shifts with less wages.
To best support the unemployed, YesCenter promotes the connection between businesses and workers through online apps, social media fanpages, and offers job counseling through the 1088 public phone hotline and their own offices at bus terminals and train stations.
The center has helped 12,000 people find jobs since the beginning of 2020.
In addition to helping workers find jobs, many groups also make efforts to help them get back on their feet after losing the previous jobs.
One such body is the Labor Federation in Go Vap District, which has helped most of the 4,140 workers laid off from a local shoe manufacturer, many of whom are female workers who are pregnant or raising young children.
Besides introducing these workers to new jobs, the federation also buys health insurance for the pregnant female workers.
They also award vocational training scholarships to less fortunate workers, each worth VND7 million.
