Good morning! Welcome to the latest free-to-read edition of the Vietnam Weekly. My apologies for the lack of a newsletter on Friday - I spent the first half of the week in Can Tho for work and didn’t have time afterward to get this together.
Later this week, I’ll send out an article for paying subscribers covering the latest anti-corruption developments - you can subscribe to receive it and all future exclusive pieces for US$5/month or US$50/year below.
Speaking of anti-corruption, I had a story published by Asia Society on how the campaign might have inadvertently scared officials out of making crucial decisions on infrastructure, healthcare, and more. I also wrote a ‘Perspective’ for VnExpress International on Ho Chi Minh City’s woeful infrastructure development, though long-time readers will have heard much of it before.
On to the news.
Blue-Collar Workers Struggling
Mid-November is usually well into the busiest time of year for Vietnam’s manufacturing sector, as holiday demand in North America and Europe drives surges in orders, and then factories churn out as much as they can before Tet.
With Tet just over two months away, this is not a normal year, thanks to the global economic situation. VnExpress ran an interesting story on companies doing everything they can to hold on to workers, such as a garment company offering employees zero-interest loans and their children scholarships.
In Binh Duong, Vietnam’s furniture production capital, some factories have already closed, with orders falling by up to 50% since the summer. The owners of some facilities that remain open, the story says, have put up their homes and cars as collateral for loans to remain open.
Of course, not every company can (or will) do that.
Another VnExpress story covered a South Korean garment factory that fired over 800 employees after orders collapsed. Most of those impacted are migrant workers, some of whom had only recently returned to HCMC after leaving when the lockdown ended in October 2021.
It’s tough to know how widespread such mass firings are, as they are largely reported on a one-off basis (and many probably aren’t covered at all). The official unemployment rate remains low (as always), at 2.3%, but this doesn’t include the informal sector and also doesn’t include people working reduced hours due to low demand.
This will be something to watch as the end of the year approaches, as many workers were likely expecting plenty of work - and therefore income - heading into Tet after two difficult holiday years.
Testing Times
Last Tuesday, the Ministry of Education sent out a circular asking all provinces and cities to “review the organization of foreign language tests in their areas.”
The next day British Council and IDP, the two organizations which arrange the IELTS test in Vietnam, suspended those tests indefinitely.
I wasn’t aware of this, but proficiency exams for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese had already been suspended a couple of months ago, but the suspension of English tests (including Cambridge and other exams beyond IELTS) garnered massive attention, given how many Vietnamese students aspire to study in English-speaking countries.
Over 20,000 Vietnamese are studying in the United States alone, comprising the fifth-largest group of foreign students in the country.
The education ministry claimed that the organization of these exams hadn’t been properly managed, an issue that could negatively impact examinees.
Instead, the ministry’s decision negatively impacted examinees, who were blindsided - some had exams scheduled on the day they were postponed. This subject is well outside of my expertise, but these tests are needed to apply to universities overseas, and many Vietnamese universities also take IELTS scores as part of their admission criteria.
"I plan to study in the U.S. in spring, but I don’t know when the tests will resume,” one student told VnExpress, and stories emerged of students flying to places like Thailand in order to take a test.
As of yesterday, both IDP and British Council had received permission to resume IELTS testing immediately.
Other language tests, meanwhile, remain in limbo, causing problems for Vietnamese wishing to, for example, go to Japan for work.
Passport Backtrack
In a quick update on a topic covered here several months, the National Assembly approved a resolution allowing place of birth to be added to Vietnamese passports after several European countries rejected the new passport, which debuted in July and did not include this info.
The process of adding these details is supposed to be completed by January 1, while the public security minister said this would not require any extra procedures or costs (really?).
It’s still not clear why the place of birth was left out of new passports in the first place, a decision that created massive headaches for visa applicants and wasted legislative time that could’ve been better spent on more important issues.
Extra Links:
Tales from my grandfather: Hoa Huynh’s Vietnam – photo essay (The Guardian)
How Cambodia’s scam mills reel in new “cyber slave” workers (Rest of World)
Hanoi's Literature Museum Is Not Neglected, but It's Not Thriving Either (Saigoneer)
Have a great week!
Mike Tatarski
