Global woes have top notch Vietnamese expats headed home

An office worker talks on his mobile phone outside a company in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. When the Investment Banking Division at Japan’s Citigroup branch told Mai Nguyen to move to another division as the company was restructuring, she simply quit her job as a financial analyst.

“I did not want to do it,” Mai told Thanh Nien Daily in an email. “Furthermore, 10 years of living in Japan is enough for me.” For the past two months, the 31-year-old executive has been searching for a position in the finance industry in Vietnam. Her search is being done from Japan through an employment agency in Ho Chi Minh City. Though there are no official statistics available, the trend is clear as documented by several local online job search engines: increasing numbers of Viet Kieu, particularly those equipped with overseas degrees, have returned or are considering seeking employment in Vietnam due to the global economic recession. Le Thi Thuy Loan, CEO of Loan Le Co. Ltd, a manpower agency that specializes in executive and middle management jobs, says she has seen a 20 percent surge in the number of Viet Kieu applicants and Vietnamese students who have graduated overseas. About 3,000 candidates are Viet Kieu in the database of approximately 600,000 candidates at loanle.com.vn, according to Loan. “The trend gradually began to take shape right after the Tet holiday,” Loan says. “There are two types: those who lost jobs overseas and Vietnamese students who have trouble finding jobs following graduation since the priority [at a time of recession] must be hiring residents of that country.” Huynh Van Thoi, general director of onlinejobs.vn, says each month the website receives about 1,000 Viet Kieu applicants. Thoi feels this trend will increase competitiveness in the domestic labor market, especially at the managerial and executive levels. But it’s only a temporary trend, he said, and only occurring in fields that have been worst hit by the global economic downturn, particularly finance, banking and information technology. “We will see more Viet Kieu and Vietnamese working overseas returning to the country in the coming days but it’s hard to pinpoint when that trend will end,” he says. Earlier this month, US magazine Business Week ran an article titled “Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the US,” in which it cites a research study conducted by Duke University and the University of California at Berkeley which tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the US and had returned to their home countries. According to the article, 87 percent of Chinese and 79 percent of Indians said a “strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries.” Some have trouble with working visas and others want to be closer to family and friends, the article says. In June 2007, Loc Nguyen graduated with a master’s degree in healthcare management from California State University at Northridge. The 30- something says he was offered several fellowships following graduation but there are more options back home. Loc has accepted a part-time position with the Hospital Management Department at Hung Vuong University in HCMC but says he’s looking for positions such as business development director, quality assurance director or associate director in healthcare management. “Though these positions are not available now, I believe they would be available soon in the future,” Loc said. “With a strong overseas network and specific skills in healthcare management, I believe I would be a strong candidate.” According to Loan, when businesses can be picky, like now, the gap between an excellent candidate and a good candidate is wider. “In the good old days, for example, when people flocked to buy real estate, you wouldn’t see much of a difference between a good sales manager and an excellent one,” she said. “But now it’s different.” And that’s where a Vietnamese applicant with a strong overseas connection and education could come in, she says. “These candidates now accept lower salaries and some of them have excellent problem-solving, communication and team work skills,” Loan says. “Plus, it would not be too hard for them to adjust to the working environment in Vietnam.” But Thoi says the trend could be somewhat negative if some companies intend to recruit Vietnamese who have worked overseas simply to advertise the company’s image. “That can be very questionable considering many Vietnamese are excellent candidates,” he says. Mai says the Vietnamese market still holds great potential for highly qualified candidates like her. “It’s very difficult to find another job right now,” she says, referring to the Japanese market. “Vietnam has been badly impacted by the crisis but it’s still doing much better than many developed countries.” Reported by Huong Le