Hanwha Ocean and HD Hyundai, two of the largest shipbuilding companies from South Korea, are working on plans to hire Vietnamese workers amid their country’s lingering workforce shortage, South Korean industry officials said on Sunday.

Hanwha Ocean signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade in Hanoi on Saturday to train and offer jobs to Vietnamese shipbuilding workers, according to news site Vietnamplus.

The MOU will help satisfy the firm’s demand for workers by supporting programs to strengthen the capabilities of vocational training institutions under the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, a Hanwha Ocean representative said.

“We expect the cooperation to enable us to work out stable plans to hire high-skilled foreign workers,” he said.

Meanwhile, HD Hyundai chairman Chung Ki-sun inspected a shipyard owned by Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding in Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam last month when he was among the business executives in South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s entourage during his visit to Vietnam.

Since Hyundai Vietnam Shipbuilding was established in 1996, Vietnam has secured the fifth-most shipbuilding orders in the world. 

It also has the largest number of high-skilled and experienced shipbuilding workers among the Southeast Asian countries.

South Korean shipbuilders have prioritized employing Vietnamese workers.

Vietnamese workers made up 55.1 percent of the nearly 1,600 foreigners getting South Korea’s E-7 (Particular Occupation) visas for shipbuilding-related activities from January 2022 to January this year, Vietnamplus reported, citing the South Korean Ministry of Justice.

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