Vietnam’s cement industry is estimated to need around 10,000 workers to operate production lines between now and 2010, according to the Vietnam Cement Corporation (VNCC).  Of the total, engineers account for some 3500 or 35 per cent of the workforce and the remainder are technical workers.  The corporation said the cement industry’s workforce demand will increase in the years to come when many cement projects that are now being implemented become operational.  
 
To ensure the workforce for the industry, VNCC will cooperate with the Ministry of Education and Training to open courses on training engineers serving the industry. In addition, the corporation will also invest in infrastructure at the Cement Technical Worker Training School in order to produce about 600 workers each year.  

The country plans to put 21 new cement plants with a combined capacity of 30.25Mta into operation between now and 2008 to meet the increasing demand for the product in the country.   In the first ten months of this year, the cement industry produced and sold 23.3Mt of cement, fulfilling 78.3 per cent of the yearly target. The figure for the whole year is expected at 28.5-29Mt, up 9.5-10 per cent against 2004.