Chronic underemployment driving youth overseas

(VISLA) that advocates migrant rights and ethical recruitment practices.

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“There are legal pathways for Vietnamese people to migrate to Germany for work, but it’s just that they don’t think they can do it on their own, and they think they have to pay these exorbitant fees - that’s the problem.”

Other than its vocational track, Germany also has migration tracks specifically aimed at recruiting trained nurses and skilled hospitality and service professionals.

Under the terms of the 2024 Berlin-Hanoi labour deal, both governments agreed to engage in regular roundtables on migration issues. At the Vietnam-Germany Labour Cooperation Forum held in the eastern German city of Leipzig in early December 2025, both governments appeared aware and committed to combat the risks of exploitation.

While Germany needs to plug urgent labour shortages due to its low birth rates, Vietnam considers labour exports as an important tool for job creation, poverty reduction and sustainable economic development, VISLA said in an online note on Vietnam's state-driven development strategy on Nov 23, 2025. According to the World Bank, Vietnam was the 12th largest recipient of remittances among lowand middle-income countries in 2024 - at US$14.7 billion, this represents more than 3 per cent of its 2024 GDP.

Despite recording strong economic growth in the last few years, Vietnam's development model has relied heavily on low labour costs to attract foreign investment, with factory workers earning less than half of Chinese wages, said VISLA.

More than half of Vietnam's 101 million people are now of working age, a window of demographic opportunity that is forecast to end sometime in the late 2030s.

But at the same time, like other middle-income countries in Asia such as China and India, Vietnam suffers from a mismatch of skills required by the job market.