HANOI, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam sent nearly 134,800 local people to work abroad in 2017, up 6.7 percent against 2016, the country's Department of Overseas Labor said on Wednesday.
Vietnam's biggest labor export market last year was China's Taiwan which received over 66,900 Vietnamese guest workers, followed by Japan with over 54,500, South Korea with about 5,200, Saudi Arabia with more than 3,600, and Malaysia with nearly 1,600.
In 2017, some foreign countries and regions had high demand for Vietnamese guest workers in the fields of healthcare and industry, said the department under the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.
Vietnam will need over 1.3 trillion Vietnamese dong (58.3 million U.S. dollars) to assist training and labor export activities to send nearly 58,400 local people with academic qualifications, mainly unemployed graduates, to work abroad in the 2018-2025 period, the department said.
From 2018 to 2020, Vietnam plans to send some 17,700 local people, mainly graduates from universities, colleges and vocational training schools, to Germany, Japan and South Korea to work mostly in the fields of information technology, electronics, telecommunications, engineering and healthcare, said the department.
In the 2021-2025 period, Vietnam will send nearly 40,650 people to work in the three above countries and some other nations such as the United States, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates, to work mainly in the fields and some new ones, including biotechnology and services.
Over 500,000 Vietnamese people are working abroad as guest workers, remitting home 1.7 billion to 2 billion U.S. dollars annually, according to the ministry.
