Mekong Institute (MI), with support from the Thailand International Cooperation Agency, completed the “Improving Institutional Capacities for Promoting Employability in the Greater Mekong Subregion” online workshop to help strengthen capacities of skills development institutes in building a competitive Vietnamese transport and logistics workforce that will meet demands of prospective Thai investors.  

With the growing aging population in Thailand, along with the government’s preparations for Industry 4.0, the country’s workforce is reorienting its skills towards services and technologically-driven jobs. Moreover, Thailand is expected to shift its labor-intensive production sites to Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV). In response to this, Thailand and MI have invested in deepening regional cooperation in the area of skills development to build a complementary and robust labor force in CLMV.

From December 16 to 18, 2020, 10 Vietnamese representatives were exposed to training strategies targeted to increase the employability of workers in the areas of transportation, inventory, packaging distribution, handling, and storage of goods and materials. Specifically, the sessions presented policy and institutional arrangements, as well as progress on national skills standardization and recognition benchmarks. Discussions also covered ways forward to strengthen the resiliency of the labor market against the impacts of COVID-19.

In addition, the collaborative workshop sessions were designed to foster stronger relations among skills development institutes from Vietnam and Thailand for deeper coordination and synergy.

At the end of the three-day workshop, participants will be required to transfer the knowledge and skills gained from the MI online workshop—as part of their action plan implementation— to more skills development officials and trainers in Vietnam.