Vietnam's young workers are helping its economy go global

In our series “The Age of Work,” “Marketplace” is looking at how labor force dynamics are changing the way the economy works.

All this week, we’ve been telling stories from Vietnam, a country with two working-age adults for every person under 15 and over 65. That young workforce has become an advantage for Vietnam on the global stage. As the populations of wealthy nations like the U.S. get older, companies are increasingly looking abroad for younger — and cheaper — workers. Vietnam is one of the places they’re going, and that’s causing the Vietnamese economy to globalize.

For this installment, “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal and ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson visited two very different places in Ho Chi Minh City that show Vietnam’s economy at an inflection point: a market frequented by locals and a homegrown tech company that makes software for other companies.

A sprawling street electronics market in Ho Chi Minh City

In the middle of Ho Chi Minh City, there’s a sprawling electronics street market where locals can buy things like TVs, remote controls, and stereos, or get them repaired. And on the morning Ryssdal and Richardson visited, the market was bustling, with people coming and going on motorbikes and vendors repairing stereos in the street.

Dự Huỳnh has been working in the electronics market for 32 years. He specializes in repairing batteries and speakers, and charges the equivalent of about $10 an hour for his time. His business relies on regular customers, which he said have remained pretty stable over the years. But one thing that has changed? The electronics themselves. More specifically, their country of origin.

“Back then, there was more [product] from China, but now it's more from America and then Japan,” Huỳnh said. “The product from Japan and America, the quality is also better.”

A Vietnamese tech company making software for the world

Four-and-a-half miles away from Huỳnh’s stall, in a neighborhood with lots of parks, cafes, and tall office buildings, is the headquarters of Saigon Technology, a homegrown Vietnamese tech company.

Thanh Pham, Saigon Technology’s CEO, co-founded the company in 2012 with three people. “Now, we have nearly 400 software engineers in Vietnam,” said Pham.

The company creates software for other companies. Some notable examples include a time-tracking app for a plumbing company and a ticketing platform for an event company.

“We have customers from all over the world,” Pham said, “with the majority in the U.S., Australia, and European countries.” Some of their largest clients include Panasonic and Abbott Laboratories.

Vietnam’s government has pushed to expand the tech sector and has implemented tax incentives, subsidies for hi-tech enterprises, and workforce training programs in order to get there. That last point is important because that’s what all of the companies are interested in, Pham included.

“Finding good engineers is always difficult,” Pham said. “We have a good talent acquisition team who understand about the labor market. We build a good career path for them, so when they come to us for the interview, we always ask them clearly, what's your next goal?’”

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