The latest spike in coronavirus cases has caused extremely high numbers of employees to pause working to undergo treatment, leading to a labor dearth in the northern region of Vietnam.

Companies are having difficulty finding workers despite resorting to some expensive solutions to keep operating.

“We are facing a severe manpower shortage,” said T., a representative of a Japanese electronics manufacturing company at Bac Thang Long Industrial Park in Hanoi. 

“Many production support staff members have become COVID-19 patients. 

“The administrative team also has to work from home starting this week.”

While the company has encouraged existing employees to seek potential candidates within their networks with a referral bonus of VND1.5 million (US$66), it has been almost impossible to recruit additional workers, according to T.

In a different approach, Maxcore Garment Co. in Ung Hoa District, Hanoi, ten percent of whose 500 workers have gone down with COVID-19, has asked each employee to be in charge of multiple stages, according to labor union president Nguyen Thi Chien.

“The productivity has declined compared to when there were enough workers,” Chien said, adding that the company is still recruiting new staff.

Hosiden Co. at Quang Chau Industrial Park in northern Bac Giang Province has also seen its production activities decreasing by ten percent, according to labor union president Nguyen Van Tan.

With 20-30 workers infected with COVID-19 every day, the firm is stepping up recruitment efforts, with requirements downgraded to only Vietnamese literacy, Tan said.

Vietnam announced 82,126 COVID-19 infections, most of which had been detected in northern localities, on Wednesday.

The country has recorded 2,965,092 community transmissions in all its 63 provinces and cities since the fourth virus wave broke out on April 27, 2021.

Upwards of 2.31 million of them have recovered from COVID-19 while the toll has spiked to 39,719.

Vietnam has confirmed 2,972,378 patients in total, including 205 imported and community-based Omicron infections, since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the country in early 2020.

Health workers have administered over 192.6 million vaccine doses since inoculation was rolled out nationwide on March 8, 2021.

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