Blockchain industry faces talent shortage

Competition for blockchain talent is becoming fiercer. — Photo tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn

A lack of human resources in the booming blockchain industry is one of the biggest problems in developing blockchain projects in the country.

A challenge from the rapid development of blockchain is that although there are many programmers in Việt Nam, the number of engineers who have an understanding of the technology and can apply it remains modest, said Trịnh Ngọc Đức, director of the company which developed the Fight of the Ages game.

Đức said that the shortage made recruitment difficult. Meanwhile, Việt Nam had not had many training programmes to meet the needs of the blockchain industry.

“The scarcity of experienced blockchain programmers affects the product development process and leaves many potential projects unimplemented,” he said.

The shortage of blockchain human resources became a big problem, with Việt Nam among the global blockchain leaders, and the application of blockchain spreading to several industries such as finance, education, healthcare, logistics and agriculture.

Technology director of FPT Group Vũ Anh Tú said that blockchain had been applied in more than 50 sectors.

Nguyễn Ngọc Dũng, President of the Việt Nam E-Commerce Association, said there were about 600 GameFi (play-to-earn blockchain games) projects.

The existing human resource only met 15-20 per cent of the recruitment demand, said Kevin Tùng Nguyễn, CEO of JobHopin.

He said that three employees of his company quit jobs recently because they were paid three times more by rival companies. This demonstrated how the market was thirsty for blockchain programmers.

The competition for talents is becoming fiercer, he added.

According to Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Dung from the National Innovation Centre , human resources was a problem for many Vietnamese blockchain companies.

She pointed out that many blockchain companies faced difficulties due to the shortage of human resources and the competition for talents among companies in the same industry.

The blockchain industry was growing fast, but there was a severe lack of resources for the industry, she stressed.

Some companies were forced to look for programmer teams in foreign countries, such as the UAE, India, South Korea and Europe, Dung said.

Blockchain had not been taught at universities. Thus, she said it was necessary to increase training through international cooperation programmes, adding that innovation centres should have labs and short-term training programmes to update new technologies for students.

Successful start-ups in the blockchain industry could also provide training courses to students, she suggested.

Nguyễn Hữu An, founder and director of the technology company SotaTek, said there were currently no schools or specialised training courses on blockchain technology. At the same time, self-study remained the key, leading to a shortage of highly qualified workers in the industry.

As the number of blockchain projects increased rapidly, the shortage of talent became more severe, An said.

According to Cái Đặng Sơn, director of Product & Engineering of Navigos Group, paying high salaries to attract talents was only a short-term measure.

Sơn said that enterprises should pay attention to training programmers who were considered the key and measures to encourage their long-term commitment.

A survey by VietnamWorks on more than 1,000 people working in the IT industry revealed that blockchain engineers got the highest salaries.

Not only Việt Nam but many countries are facing a shortage of blockchain talent. A report by social network LinkedIn showed that the recruitment demand for blockchain programmers would continue to increase this year.

The LinkedIn statistics showed that job postings with the keyword “blockchain” increased by 395 per cent in 2020-21 in the US.

Positions like “blockchain engineer” and “blockchain programmer” alone accounted for 15.64 per cent of the total number of jobs on LinkedIn. — VNS