Vietnam was expected to end its golden population phase and enter its aging population period in 2036, according to local experts.

Golden population structure means that there is only one dependent person for every two or more working-age people aged 15-64, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

The golden population structure usually lasts from 30 to 35 years, or even longer. In Vietnam, the period started in 2007.

Pham Chanh Trung, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Population and Family Planning Department, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that Vietnam was among the countries with the fastest population aging in the world.

To effectively utilize the golden population period and adapt to an aging population, the country should drastically improve its population quality, invest in healthcare and education, and enhance the manpower quality, Trung added.

“Vietnam’s trained laborers remain modest. Many of them fail to meet the requirements of sectors, resulting in a low labor productivity and the failure to serve the fourth industrial revolution and the international integration,” Trung noted.

Vietnam is in the golden population period and it should take advantage of the opportunity to boost its socio-economic development, according to Nguyen Khanh Cuong, rector of Lilama2 International Technology College based in Dong Nai Province in southern Vietnam.

The country needs to focus on training its laborers, he said.

Vietnam is forecast to end its golden population period in 2036. Photo: Nam Tran / Tuoi Tre

According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam had 52.4 million working-age people aged 15-64 years, or 52 percent of its total population, in 2023.

The number of trained laborers was estimated at 14.1 million, making up 27 percent of the population.

This means that over 38 million laborers were untrained.

Professor Nguyen Dinh Cu, president of the scientific council of the research institute for population, family and children, said with about half of the working-age people being under 34, Vietnam has favorable conditions to absorb new science and technology.

The country annually has an additional 1.5-1.6 million working-age people. However, the force is still unable to push economic development as over 70 percent of them are unskilled laborers.

The severe shortage of high-skilled laborers and those for high-end services in trade, finance, banking, and tourism sectors are enormous challenges for the country, Cu said.

Professor Dr. Giang Thanh Long from the National Economics University in Hanoi shared the view that Vietnam will pass the golden population phase in 2036, saying that the number of trained laborers in Vietnam is increasing slowly.

Manufacturing sectors have played an increasingly important role in ensuring growth and improving incomes.

However, many local enterprises labor-intensive sectors, such as textile, garment, and footwear, are mainly completing unimportant phases of the value chains.

“We are mainly assembling or outsourcing products, not independently creating or designing [products]. In other words, local laborers will be vulnerable if there is an economic shock,” Long said.

As a result, it is a must to improve laborers’ skills and change the country’s economic structure, specifically fostering the development of hi-tech sectors, the expert suggested.

It is also important to prepare for the aging population by building healthcare policies for old residents so that they can live healthily, have their living and working environment and will not become a burden for the society, Long added.

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