Average salary of Vietnamese IT staff is nearly 19 million VND/month

According to a report by the job network JobStreet.com, the average salary of IT workers is in the Top 10 highest-paying industries. (Illustration photo)

IT is in the Top 10 highest paying industries

JobStreet.com Vietnam recently held a press conference on the issue of "Salary transparency in recruitment in Vietnam" with the latest updates on Salary Report as well as the benefits of salary transparency for the Vietnamese labor market.

According to JobStreet.com 's report, in all three positions of employees, mid-level staff and managers, the IT industry is in the Top 10 industries with high average salaries.

Specifically, in the employee position (from 1 to 4 years of experience), with an average salary of more than 18.8 million VND/month, IT personnel ranked 3rd in the Top 10 industries with high salaries, only behind the salaries of personnel in the 2 fields of Health (more than 24 million VND/month), Secretary/assistant and executive (more than 18.9 million VND/month).

Top 10 industries with high average salaries for employees with 1 - 4 years of experience, according to research by JobStreet.com

In the mid-level personnel position with 5 years of experience or more, after the occupations of Administrator, Medical, Reporter/Editor, Hotel/Tourism Service Manager, Engineer and Sales, IT personnel have an average salary ranked 7th in the Top 10 industries with high salaries, with an average salary of more than 18.9 million VND/month.

In management positions, Technical Support staff can receive a salary of 55 million VND/month; followed by Sales with more than 30 million VND/month; Law/Legal Services with more than 27.3 million VND/month; Administrator with 27.1 million VND/month; Production Management with more than 26.2 million VND/month... IT ranks 6th with an average salary of more than 24.6 million VND/month.

80% of domestic employees are not satisfied with their salary

However, JobStreet.com's research on the labor market in Vietnam also shows that 60% of workers do not know salary information before applying, making it difficult for them to negotiate salary with employers.

In particular, according to a survey by JobStreet.com , 54% of Vietnamese workers said they received lower salaries than the market and up to 80% of domestic employees were not satisfied with their salaries.

In fact, according to JobStreet.com, the salary of Vietnamese workers is still not high, with 31% of workers earning between 3-5 million VND, while 36% have to spend between 2-4 million VND/month. Therefore, 68% of Vietnamese workers said that their “income is not enough to cover expenses” and that they live “quite hard at the end of each month”.

Therefore, when asked in the survey, 94% of employees in Vietnam want to know about salary information before applying.

On the contrary, from the employer's side, there are still reasons why they do not want to share salary information when posting job advertisements because "salary is not competitive, difficult to attract candidates" or fear of "disclosing salary information to internal employees".

This has made it difficult for many candidates, especially new graduates and inexperienced employees, to negotiate salaries with employers, as well as find it difficult to get a job with the desired salary.

However, there are still opinions from employers that sharing salary information with candidates before the interview will help bring certain benefits such as: saving time and negotiation effort between the two parties, as well as making it easier for them to attract candidates within the budget set by the company. This is considered a major turning point in the process of "transparency" of the recruitment market in Vietnam.

Vietnamese human resource salaries are still lower than those of other countries in the region.

According to salary data compiled by JobStreet.com, the salary for Vietnamese employees is still quite low compared to Singapore and Malaysia. For example, a Finance Director in Vietnam only has a salary of about 40% compared to the salary of an equivalent position in Singapore. Specifically, this position in Vietnam will have a salary of 2,002 USD - 2,877 USD, while in Singapore, the salary for senior management personnel in the Finance / Banking industry is from 4,992 USD - 7,064 USD, and in Malaysia it is 2,326 USD - 3,780 USD.

Similarly, for the Human Resources industry, a senior management position in Vietnam also has a much lower salary than in other Southeast Asian countries, at only 1,310 USD - 1,845 USD, about 4 times lower than Singapore's salary of 5,102 USD - 8,241 USD. Although the monthly salary for this position in Malaysia is lower than Singapore's, it is still higher than Vietnam's, at 2,326 USD - 4,434 USD.

In the senior management position in the Manufacturing industry, Singapore still has the highest salary from 3,532 USD - 6,004 USD, Malaysia ranks second at 2,326 USD - 4,361 USD. At the bottom is still Vietnam with a salary ranging from 1,172 USD - 1,744 USD.

And the salary for Senior Reporters/Editors in Vietnam is only 742 USD - 1,223 USD, 3 times lower than Singapore at 2,237 USD - 3,375 USD and slightly lower than Malaysia at 812 USD - 1,308 USD.

JobStreet.com experts believe that the reason why Vietnamese workers' salaries are low is because Vietnamese workers' productivity is not high, because according to the ILO report, only 1/5 of the labor force in Vietnam has received professional training.

Besides, the current generation of Vietnamese workers is the first generation of "office workers", making them lack experience in the office environment and intellectual work.

Furthermore, the labor market in Vietnam is still not transparent, especially in terms of salary, so domestic workers still face many difficulties when negotiating salary or proposing a salary increase with employers.

“This leads to the Vietnamese market not having a “standard” salary for each industry, making it impossible for employers and employees to reach an agreement on salary,” said a representative of the JobStreet.com job network in Vietnam.

In January 2014, the JobStreet.com job site launched the “Salary Suggestion” feature to connect candidates and employers based on salary criteria. Accordingly, all job postings on JobStreet.com are required to show a specific salary range from the lowest to the highest that employers can pay candidates.

JobStreet.com believes that this feature can help candidates avoid the situation of applying blindly and not knowing whether the salary for the position they are applying for is suitable for their expectations. At the same time, displaying the salary on the recruitment ad also helps save time and resources for both candidates and employers.

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