This is a profession with high salaries and bonuses in recent years and is always in a state of shortage of human resources.
Lack of experienced personnel
Based on data from IT recruitment platform TopDev, the information technology (IT) labor market in Vietnam is still facing a serious shortage, especially of high-quality personnel.
In 2024, Vietnam will need about 500,000 IT personnel, but the supply can only meet nearly 300,000 people. Recruitment trends in this field are forecasted to continue to increase in the future, especially for positions requiring high qualifications such as technology engineers, technicians and programmers.
More than 55% of businesses also stated that the problem does not lie in the supply of human resources but in the lack of highly skilled candidates. At the same time, nearly 50% of businesses face difficulties due to fierce competition from large technology corporations or start-ups with attractive compensation policies.
In addition, 37% of businesses expressed concerns about retaining talent when the labor market offers too many options for them.
According to the TopCV platform’s 2024-2025 recruitment trend report, based on a survey of more than 3,000 businesses and analysis of 300,000 job postings, the IT industry will continue to be in the group of severe human resource shortages this year. In particular, high demand focuses on candidates with 2-3 years of experience, while quality supply remains a difficult problem.
In addition, the strong development of artificial intelligence (AI) also creates a remarkable trend. When AI has the ability to replace basic jobs, 63% of surveyed workers said that they need to practice more soft skills that AI has difficulty copying to ensure that their positions are not threatened.
Another unique factor of the IT labor market in Vietnam is the requirement for English. According to an industry expert, the demand for recruiting IT personnel with foreign language skills increases steadily by about 35% each year. This shows that proficiency in foreign languages, especially English, will be a great competitive advantage for IT candidates in the eyes of employers.
Income is always good
In the face of many challenges in the global economy, most businesses in all sectors are forced to optimize human resources costs. However, compared to other industries, salaries in the information technology sector remain high.
According to the Hanoi City Employment Service Center, in the last months of 2024, recruitment demand in Hanoi tends to increase sharply as businesses accelerate production and business to meet market demand during holidays and Tet.
Positions like programmers, data analysts, AI specialists and cybersecurity engineers continue to lead the demand for human resources in the technology industry.
The IT industry still holds the leading position in terms of income, with an average salary of 20 – 35 million VND/month. In particular, positions such as AI experts, network security engineers and software developers are often paid higher than the average.
It can be seen that the income level in the IT industry increases significantly when workers have many years of experience and are committed for a long time. In addition, some positions also have the opportunity to receive additional large bonuses, such as project bonuses or performance bonuses, to motivate and attract talent.
The electronics – IT industry is still in the group with the highest bonus on the occasion of Lunar New Year 2025 in Ho Chi Minh City. This information was shared by Mr. Nguyen Bao Cuong, Head of the Department of Labor, Wages and Social Insurance (Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Ho Chi Minh City).
Accordingly, through synthesizing information from 1,570 survey forms of enterprises on the 2025 Tet bonus plan, it shows that the electronics – IT industry is still in the group with the highest bonus levels. This group includes food processing, software development, and trading enterprises… The Lunar New Year bonus in Ho Chi Minh City is about 12.7 million VND/month, higher than last year. The highest bonus level belongs to a foreign investment enterprise (FDI), with 1.908 billion VND. The lowest bonus level (average) is 5.9 million VND.
It can be seen that the IT industry still holds the leading position in terms of income. According to TopDev’s survey, the most attractive IT industry bonuses are in the remaining top 5 in order: 2-month salary bonus, 1-month salary bonus and commitment bonus when recruiting, Christmas bonus and New Year bonus and Tet bonus, 1-month salary bonus and productivity bonus.
In the IT market as a whole, 1 month’s salary is the average Tet bonus for programmers, regardless of management position. Meanwhile, the average salary that employers are willing to pay for experienced programmers is 1,329 USD (about 30 million VND) per month.
Compared to this data, the average Tet bonus for experienced programmers is estimated at 30 million VND. Of which, the “most attractive” level is 6 months’ salary, estimated at 180 million VND, excluding management positions.