Up and coming Vietnam welcomes skilled expat professionals

If you’re searching for a challenging, totally different environment for your next relocation, Vietnam is fast becoming a favourite with adventurous expat professionals.

Considering Vietnam’s history over the last half of the 20th century, the country’s present-day economic growth is something of a modern miracle. Taking part in growing the country still further may well be a challenge, but it’s nothing that determined, skilled expats can’t cope with, given just a few hints.

Although the international economic recession caused by the 2008 financial crash has left its mark, Vietnam is offering many rewards to skilled expats willing to give their all to a new job in a fascinating culture. At the present time, it’s one of the fastest-growing Southeast Asian countries and has one of the world’s lowest unemployment totals, with 98 per cent of the population in work. During the last quarter century it jumped from a poverty-stricken ruin of a country to lower middle income status, with its poverty rate slashed during the same period from 58 to 14 per cent.

Expats willing to give the country a chance will find a unique business culture based on a defined hierarchy in which all decisions are made at top level, and respecting senior co-workers and managers is essential. Status, both in society and the business world, is all-important and is achieved by education as well as age. Surprisingly, women executives are increasingly common, readjusting the male-dominated structure of previous years.

Vietnam’s achievements are down to cross-sector government reforms of important industries, including telecommunications, energy, tourism, agriculture and the food industry in general. Public companies have been privatised, foreign investment has been encouraged and effective monetary policies have been introduced. Opportunities for skilled expat professionals are there for the taking, and the economy is expected to continue its upward mobility.

Work permit requirements are at present being simplified and various exemptions are granted to suitable incomers. Those with a bachelors’ degree, three years or more work experience, those already working in a number of fields who’ve been transferred by their overseas employer, teachers in international schools and various other professionals will mostly be able to take advantage of reduced bureaucracy when applying for visas and work permits.