Firms Suffer As Y-generation Employees Change Jobs Regularly

Y-generation employees change jobs regularly

Nguyen Phuong Mai, CEO of Navigos Search, said recruitment demand has been increasing steadily in the last few years. The demand rose by 20 percent in 2017 over the year before. However, supply increased by only 14 percent. 

As the labor supply did not increase proportionally with labor demand, businesses have found it difficult to structure their work.

The supply source of the Vietnamese labor market heavily depends on Y-generation candidates. Twenty-six percent of Vietnamese are in this age bracket. 

The strong point of Y-generation workers is that they are eager to lear and willing to improve. Sixty-three percent of workers of this group said their motivation is to increase their level of expertise and skills.

This group now receives special attention because it is the key generation in the global force, accounting for 32 percent of the world’s population and 35 percent of Vietnamese.

However, they do not have a strong attachment to companies. A Navigos survey of 3,000 applicants found that 69 percent of them are open to new opportunities, and more than 70 percent of candidates said they would change jobs after two to three years of work.

Meanwhile, 41 percent of businesses said it is difficult to find candidates suitable for management posts in this group, because of the lack of candidates with experience and skills.

Poor foreign language skills are also a barrier. Besides English, recruiters now want candidates who can speak Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

Commenting about the short supply of candidates for management posts, Mai said the problem not only due to a lack of qualified candidates, but also the ‘brain drain’ caused by the startup movement.

Medium- and high-tier managers often leave companies to set up new businesses of their own. They ask other officers in the same companies to join forces with them to run the new businesses. 

In its report released in March, Anphabe also warned about the high percentage of Y-generation workers changing their jobs regularly. 

Mai of Navigos Search said that frequent job changing would lead to two problems. Businesses will not be able to retain and develop talent and workers will suffer from their decisions to change jobs.

“They don’t stay in the same positions long enough to be able to upgrade their knowledge and get experience to become better,” she said.

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Thanh Mai