Ho Chi Minh City’s hospitality sector faces widening labor gap

The gap highlights the need to expand training capacity and better align occupational standards with labor-market demand.

Vietnam has set a target for tourism to contribute 10-12 percent directly to GDP by 2030, attract 45-50 million international visitors and generate US$80-90 billion in tourism revenue, creating significant demand for workers in hospitality and tourism.

Ho Chi Minh City is one of Vietnam’s three tourism growth poles and aims to welcome 10-11 million international visitors this year and rank among Southeast Asia’s leading tourism cities.

At a conference organized by the municipal Department of Tourism, Vo Ngoc Diep, head of the tourism accommodation management division under the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, estimated that Ho Chi Minh City could welcome 20 million international visitors and 67 million domestic tourists, generating more than VND684 trillion ($26.4 billion) in tourism revenue by 2030.

The accommodation sector would then need an estimated 190,000-250,000 workers.

Including replacement demand for employees who leave, total annual recruitment needs could reach 23,000-28,000 workers.

The annual recruitment demand is four to six times the capacity of formal training, Diep said.

The workforce challenge, however, is not just about numbers.

Diep said there are still significant gaps in workers’ qualifications and professional skills, with some frontline employees lacking formal training. This highlights the need to continue improving the quality of the workforce.

Le Truong Hien Hoa, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, said the workforce challenge is no longer simply about having enough people, but having the right people with the right skills who are ready to meet the industry’s changing requirements.

The hospitality labor market is changing rapidly with the development of technology, data and artificial intelligence.

“As travelers demand higher quality, greater personalization, speed and professionalism, workers must be able to continuously update their knowledge and skills and engage in lifelong learning to keep pace with changes in the market,” he said.

Aligning hospitality skills with international standards

Dr. Ngo Trung Ha, a senior assessor for ASEAN tourism occupations at Pegasus International College, said the city does not need to build an entirely new occupational standards system.

Starting from scratch would require additional resources and could create overlapping standards, he said.

“Ho Chi Minh City should integrate existing standards, including the ASEAN Common Competency Standards for Tourism Professionals, with 242 competency units covering 32 job titles, the Vietnam Tourism Occupational Skills Standards, and the National Occupational Skills Standards,” he said.

From a research perspective, Dr. Duong Duc Minh proposed that Ho Chi Minh City develop a hotel workforce monitoring system modeled on a Hotel Workforce Observatory, focusing on workforce indicators by geographic area, type of accommodation establishment, department and job position.

Such a system would help authorities identify skill shortages, give training institutions a basis for adjusting their programs, and enable businesses to track labor trends and recruitment needs.

Data protection should be built into the system from the design stage, and there is no need to collect detailed personal information, he said.

From a recruitment perspective, Le Quoc Viet, a representative of Hoteljob.vn, said businesses need to establish clear career paths and appropriate salary and benefits policies to retain young workers.

He added that particular attention should be paid to the first two to three months of an internship or probation, when workers develop their professional mindset, conduct and attitude.