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Vietnamese here, can discuss some insights (although haven't visited my country since mid-2015, and later knowledge comes from reading local news, talking to fr

Vietnamese here, can discuss some insights (although haven't visited my country since mid-2015, and later knowledge comes from reading local news, talking to friends, etc. so take any information here with a grain of salt). Unlike many countries, typical Vietnamese people have a strong obsession with working in the public sector / government-based employments, which basically guarantees lifetime employment and not too much of work pressure. Naturally, tons of people apply for such positions, and corruption/bribery inevitably occurs. This is one example of how people applying for public job (article in Vietnamese, but the photo speaks for itself) http://us.24h.com.vn/tin-tuc-trong-ngay/phoi-nang-treo-tuong-nop-ho-so-thi-vao-tong-cuc-thue-c46a650313.html http://us.24h.com.vn/tin-tuc-trong-ngay/phoi-nang-treo-tuong... Right now the public sector is under severe criticism for underpaying, overstaffing and inefficiency. There are proposals of cutting 30 percent of staffs, but bureaucracy moves slowly, and naturally you won't expect the job prospect in this sector change overnight. How about the private sector (say startup)? In the last 10 years there have been tremendous progress, but their scale are still small compared to public (I'm talking about Vietnamese-owned companies, foreign-owned companies like Citibank or Uber are a different matter). Vietnam is still very early game in capitalistic economic model, with infrastructure (transportation, electronic payment, law) years behind developed countries. Simply put, the condition to operate private companies in Vietnam hasn't been fully fleshed out yet. With time there will be explosive growth in this sector, but for now, the government is still a huge beast.

sfifs 9y ago
This was India about a couple of decades back at the beginning of economic liberalization. Give it time. Sucks for those in the present but changes rapidly
- baybal2 9y ago
  >Give it time. Now think, where are all those public sector workers? Probably regretting big their decisions at the start of their careers. Right now, people who go into industry right out of the school have huge opportunity. Low competition, low barriers for entry. By the time the private sector economy will pass the inflection point, and be making good money, people who choose work in private enterprises will be years ahead of the competition. Check on how Russian IT industry rose up. Back in mid-noughties, a typical IT worker/software dev was either a high-schooler, self-taught person, or "studied botanics, but ended up in IT" type graduate. Barriers for entry were pretty much non-existent, there were nobody to push back at hiring such people with their "authoritative opinion." When the economy finally went belly up in 2014, people with ~50k incomes in hard currency suddenly became big men and among them were many people from IT. Many of such people started their own shops. Now, Russian companies have luxury to hire people with PhD level education for intern level position, because the crowd that was going into banking/lawyer/MBA/statesmanship finally turned to IT.

sfifs 9y ago

This was India about a couple of decades back at the beginning of economic liberalization. Give it time. Sucks for those in the present but changes rapidly

baybal2 9y ago
>Give it time. Now think, where are all those public sector workers? Probably regretting big their decisions at the start of their careers. Right now, people who go into industry right out of the school have huge opportunity. Low competition, low barriers for entry. By the time the private sector economy will pass the inflection point, and be making good money, people who choose work in private enterprises will be years ahead of the competition. Check on how Russian IT industry rose up. Back in mid-noughties, a typical IT worker/software dev was either a high-schooler, self-taught person, or "studied botanics, but ended up in IT" type graduate. Barriers for entry were pretty much non-existent, there were nobody to push back at hiring such people with their "authoritative opinion." When the economy finally went belly up in 2014, people with ~50k incomes in hard currency suddenly became big men and among them were many people from IT. Many of such people started their own shops. Now, Russian companies have luxury to hire people with PhD level education for intern level position, because the crowd that was going into banking/lawyer/MBA/statesmanship finally turned to IT.