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Linh Pham/The New York Times/Redux
By LAM LE
5 SEPTEMBER 2023 • HANOI, VIETNAM
TRANSLATE
- Tech suppliers for Apple and others are hiring rapidly across Vietnam in a bid to expand outside of China, despite a slump in electronics demand.
- But things are moving slowly. In Vietnam, key Apple supplier Luxshare has only hired half its goal of 24,000 new workers, with Foxconn scrambling for a similar number.
Vietnam is the world’s third-largest manufacturing hub for smart devices from brands like Apple and Samsung. With Apple under pressure to expand manufacturing away from China, its suppliers, like Foxconn and Luxshare-ICT, are hiring rapidly in Vietnam to meet renewed orders for AirPods and chargers. Foxconn is recruiting some 24,500 assembly workers in the country’s north, according to a local media report. Rival Luxshare is hiring 24,000. These are massive recruitment numbers, considering tens of thousands of factory workers were pushed out of work during the recent slump.
But the labor market is taking time to snap back. “The previous massive layoffs of laborers have caused many to move back to their hometowns, making it difficult for enterprises to rehire a similar number of staff,” Ivan Lam, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research, told Rest of World.
Most of the current hiring push is happening in Bac Giang, where Foxconn and Luxshare have multiple factories assembling Apple Watches, AirPods, and chargers for Apple and other tech giants. The Vietnamese province is known as a major tech assembly hub, with workers flocking in from distant provinces in search of jobs that are higher-paid and more comfortable than farming.
It took 43-year-old Vuong Thi Liem a day to reach Bac Giang by bus from her mountainous village near the border with China. Prior to the pandemic, she worked for Luxshare for roughly a year, but then quit to care for her grandchildren. Now that they’re grown and Liem has time to spare, she’d rather get back on the factory floor, away from the hot sun in the rice fields.
“The company’s HR arranged [free] lodging for me,” Liem told Rest of World outside Luxshare-ICT’s factory. “It’s great. What’s the point of staying at home? It’s a waste of time.”
But, despite her enthusiasm, Liem is approaching the upper age limit for a Luxshare worker — 45 years for women, and 40 years for men. Still, Bac Giang is in need of migrant workers. The province has to fill up 70,000 vacancies by the end of the year, mainly for electronics workers, according to Lao Dong, a labor-focused newspaper.
“Bac Giang can basically meet 60% of the target recruitment numbers,” Nguyen Van Hue, director of Bac Giang Employment Service Center, told Lao Dong. “Recruitment faces many difficulties.”
Luxshare has been recruiting workers almost every day since July, hoping to fill hundreds of positions daily. In reality, the company is hitting only half that quota, a company spokesperson told the local Communist Party newspaper, Bac Giang Online.
To attract workers, some companies have simplified recruitment procedures and added more incentives. Foxconn subsidiary New Wing Interconnect Technology relaxed its rules on age and experience, additionally offering to pay up to 10 million dong ($415) per month, along with dormitories for migrant workers and shuttle buses for commutes. A line in the recruitment ad for Taiwanese laptop assembler Wistron stands out: “Small tattoos allowed.” It’s a rare exception to strict no-tattoo rules in the industry. In places like Bac Giang, pointed adverts for tattoo removal services can be found near its industrial parks.
Deep C is a builder of high-spec business parks in the industrial areas of Hai Phong and Quang Ninh; its clients include Pegatron, a Microsoft and Apple supplier. Pegatron has recently begun recruitment drives, offering a range of perks for migrant workers — including a language-learning allowance — that amount to a monthly earnings package of up to 13 million dong ($540). Plans are also in place to turn Deep C’s industrial sites into mini-cities so that workers don’t need to travel far for their social and entertainment needs.
“At the moment, I believe that the big challenge for our investors is not really attracting the people. It’s about retaining the people,” Koen Soenens, director of general sales and marketing at Deep C, told Rest of World. “Because with every new investor coming to Deep C, there is a potential competitor.”
Competition to retain talent is set to intensify, as more manufacturers reshore their operations to Vietnam amid U.S.-China tensions, experts told Rest of World. Deep C is already strategizing about how to draw workers, tapping not just schools, colleges, and recruitment agencies, but also the 3,000 local graduates from the national service who are known to be “disciplined, young, and eager to find a job.”
Stakes are high for Apple to get its supply chain in place. September is traditionally when the company announces new products and upgrades, “most probably a large volume [of which] will be produced outside China,” said Soenens. It has some advantages: The supplier companies are known for relatively good wage schemes, including overtime payroll, and a good working environment.
But workers like Cong have plans of their own, too. In his eyes, a job at Foxconn is a temporary gig for a few years. Once the Vietnam-China fruit trade recovers, he’ll be back behind the wheel of a truck.
“I like driving. It’s right for me, the freedom,” said Cong. “[Applying to Foxconn] is a big new step to test my limits, whether I can stay with this job.
Apple suppliers Foxconn and Luxshare are scrambling for 45,000 workers
The companies slashed jobs. But under pressure to expand away from China, they suddenly need them back.
restofworld.org
