Ensuring that Cambodia's youth have jobs that allow for sustainable incomes is a key government policy. Minister of Labour and Vocational Training Heng Sour ensures it is met with results
As a key goal of the new government, how do you plan to increase the competitiveness of the Cambodian workforce?
Skills and productivity improvements are a must to ensure that Cambodia maintains its economic growth. To make our skill development work as a supporting tool for economic growth and answer the needs of the private sector, the government has put forward an ambitious plan to train 1.5 million youth, especially those from poor and at-risk households, in prioritised sectors, and with skills that are highly needed in the labour market.
We will also do periodic surveys among the private sector and potential investors to identify the future needs of the workforce.
What role will your ministry play in this process?
To achieve these ambitions, the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MLVT) has to pursue active labour market policies, provide sufficient information to the youth so they can choose appropriate skills and jobs, and provide sufficient information to keep training providers up to date with the industries and sectors we will need in the future.
To ensure the success of these active labour market policies, we have to ensure the quality of our training programmes; they must be updated and standardised across the board. Since Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is about know-how, we need to ensure that our manpower can respond to evolving industries and to new technologies or updates in production methodologies.
Training must be flexible as well, because it’s not only the youth that are targeted under our programmes. The currently employed workforce is also targeted, so it must be flexible, with courses in the daytime, nighttime and on the weekends.
There are also issues with the public perception of vocational training that must be addressed. How will you improve attitudes and increase interest in these programmes?
Families dream of sending their children to higher education, but at the same time, they are in need of jobs and income.
TVET is considered the fastest and most effective way to support those who are in need of jobs and income, but the image of TVET is still not attractive enough. It is considered a dead end. We are changing this. If you are entering into TVET, you will be able to continue your education as long as you wish. You get a job, you get income and you are able to continue your studies when you feel you are ready.
At the same time, we must also work with the private sector. Currently it is very hard to convince people to go through training if they don’t see any difference between those who have not had any training and those who have. When they begin working, they receive the same pay.
We have to work on the environment and supporting policy to make TVET more attractive and raise awareness among the public. TVET is about lifelong learning and it is not a dead end. Pursuing TVET is a smart path.
Well-educated and trained young people often pursue job opportunities overseas. How does this brain and skill drain impact the economy and what can be done to halt it?
If you look at the phenomenon of migration, it’s not only in Cambodia. Even in advanced economies, people are always travelling around the world looking for better job opportunities and better pay. But I think the phenomenon of migration and the workforce moving around can actually become an opportunity for Cambodia.
We witness that after people work abroad for some time, they return home, not only by themselves, but with the knowledge of new technologies and industries.
In Cambodia’s case, when workers return from Korea they bring the knowledge and know-how in agriculture back home. In some provinces, I have seen workers return from overseas with the savings they earned in Korea and set up their own farms using the greenhouse technologies that they learned while they were working abroad.
Many Cambodians, after they go to work in Thailand, return home and become supervisors. Cambodians that studied and worked in Japan return and become heads of sections in some industries.
If you look at Cambodians that work in Japan or in Thailand, once technology-based industries move to Cambodia, they will return. If we train workers, they can go to work abroad first and when we have new industries, they can return home.
When investors see the good performance of our workers, they might consider moving production to Cambodia as well.
Some say it will be difficult for Cambodia to catch up to more industrialised and productive neighbouring countries. Vietnam, for example, is building chip factories and producing for the likes of Samsung and Apple. How can Cambodia remain competitive within this context?
In terms of markets, investing in Cambodia is investing in the whole of ASEAN because we have free trade across the region.
At the same time, we need to understand the divisions in the production chain. Companies don’t put every process into a single country.
For example, since Cambodia is between Vietnam and Thailand, a neighbour of ours might be the main production site for some key components.
But Cambodia can be a production site to supply accessories, to supply spare parts and other supporting products to those main
production processes. I don’t think Cambodia will be disadvantaged by the relocation
of some industries from China or other countries to ASEAN.
In terms of policy, Cambodia is not in stagnation. We are proactive and continue to customise our policy to support investors. For example, lately the government has introduced specialised industrial zones for specific countries, and special economic zones that our trading partners can join and focus on a specific industry. For either of these, the government provides all the necessary support and infrastructure.
Also, our policies are based on labour compliance, green energy and sustainable development, and have been recognised by our trading partners. So, based on government efforts to upgrade skills, our commitment to labour compliance and green energies and to support green jobs, I hope that investors will count on Cambodia.
