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In recent years, the graduate unemployment has been on an upward trend, reported the Communist Party of Vietnam Online Newspaper.

Employment is always a big issue in Vietnam given the pressures derived from the high ratio of the population of working age.

There is a big pool of qualified graduates who are having a hard time to find the jobs that they desire.

One the one hand, some businesses in Hanoi recently released statistics revealing that over 70 percent of employees with university degrees are working in unskilled or semi-skilled positions. On the other, many employers say they cannot find people with the right skills.

The country is not creating a sufficient number of high-quality positions to soak up its educated youngsters. Worse yet, the number of graduates and the number of institutions of higher education have been on the rise in recent years.

There are many reasons why graduates take positions unrelated to their studies.

According to an official from the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL), Government's policies relating to education, vocational guidance, employment administration and wage policies are all unsynchronized and provide no direct support to graduates.

Secondly, Vietnam is rapidly developing the tertiary education. Many new universities have been established with many joint-venture training programmes. Therefore, the number of students of the tertiary education system has increased dramatically in recent years.

Thirdly, university degree obsession exists among many families. A survey conducted among high school students showed that most of respondents intended to go to university, or college but very few of these students, actually planned to join a vocational training programme.

The Ministry of Labour, War-Invalids and Social Affairs recently released an alarming figure of 72,000 unemployed graduates and post graduates.

According to an official of the VGCL, the Government should implement more comprehensive policies, particularly policies relating to vocational training and tertiary education, there must be fundamental change.

Source: VNA