“All I could think of was Thomas Friedman’s book ‘The World is Flat,’ where he describes how the economic and geopolitical playing field has leveled between Third World countries and the West,” he said.

Sheely, Lancaster Workforce Investment Board director, was part of a 12-member delegation that visited Vietnam in September in support of President Bush’s attendance at Saturday’s Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Sheely has made a career of helping people acquire work skills and jobs as well as teaching businesses how to build and maintain a skilled work force.

But during his visit to Vietnam, Sheely found himself the student, learning from Hanoi businesses that have pushed economic growth in the country above 7 percent for four straight years.

Sheely compared the different challenges facing this country and the emerging Third World.

In Lancaster, Sheely tries to resolve worker dislocations and the difficulties associated with an aging work force, an emerging employment base challenged by technology and unprepared for the world of work and employers who are just beginning to understand worker shortages, he said.

“In particular, shortages of skilled workers will threaten the viability and competitiveness of their operations for the foreseeable future,” he said. “It is amazing to me how slowly American businesses have been to respond in meaningful ways.”

Vietnam’s emerging economy faces several hurdles, including an inadequate education system. Sheely said urbanization has given way to terrible air pollution, an inadequate infrastructure and crowded living conditions.

“And it’s still a communist country with a party structure, bureaucracy and planning process that leave a lot to be desired,” Sheely said. “Ultimately, a free and democratic government supports a free and market-driven economy and vice versa.”

Sheely was amazed how former rice paddies in Hanoi are now thoroughfares choked with thousands of young commuters riding motorbikes.

While the United States is facing critical shortages of skilled workers to replace retirees, that is hardly the case in Vietnam.

“The first thing that strikes you when you go into these companies is that everybody is young,” Sheely said.

He said the older workers from the hardline Communist regime retired when business privatization began in 2004.

“They retired to take advantage of government pensions,” Sheely said. “There’s nobody over 40 in these plants.”

With a growth rate of 8.4 percent in 2005, Vietnam trails only China as Asia’s fastest-growing economy, and its rate of exports to the United States is rising faster than China’s, said Sheely.

Sheely visited an apparel manufacturer called Company Number 10, which makes suits, trousers, shirts and other products for companies such as Van Heusen, Gap Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Inc.

He said the modern manufacturing plants in Vietnam have good lighting, are well ventilated, have multiple and detailed quality checks, observe strict safety rules and are equipped with state-of-the-art electronics “that are as good as anywhere in the world.”

Typical of Vietnamese plants, Number 10 has a work force of 4,000 employees, a day-care center, a medical clinic on site that can treat workers or their families and on-site training programs, Sheely said.

“They do all of their training, even for the most technical positions, right on site,” Sheely said.

Traveling to Vietnam with the U.S. Labor Department group were Microsoft’s managing director of education, employment experts like Sheely from Indiana and Florida, faculty from various colleges as well as representatives from federal agencies such as Policy Development and Research and the Office of Workforce Security.

“I gradually understood that this meeting was a part of a series of technical assistance conferences that were being held in preparation for President Bush’s visit and Vietnam joining the World Trade Organization later in the year,” Sheely said.

Vietnam’s economy has flourished under a 2001 economic agreement with the United States, under which trade between the nations has grown from $1.2 billion to $7.8 billion since 2000.

However, Congress this week surprised Bush and disappointed many U.S.-based businesses that have invested heavily in Vietnam by refusing to act on a proposal to grant the country favored trade status.

Over the last several years, the national leadership has gradually begun privatizing companies with an eye to Vietnamese investors.

“Foreign investment in the country is considerable, with Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong leading the way,” Sheeley said.

More than 57 percent of Vietnam’s population is under 30 years old. With an annual average wage under $1,000, the comparatively low labor costs are now attracting work from China.

“For the Vietnamese worker, however, this is an exceptionally high wage with an attractive set of company-paid benefits,” Sheely said.


Patrick Burns’ e-mail address is pburns@lnpnews.com. blog comments powered by Disqus