For the first half of 2015, 56,173 Vietnamese labourers, 16,942 of whom were women, were employed overseas. This was an increase of 1.7 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Taiwan is the No 1 employer of Vietnamese workers with 7,505 labourers, followed by Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

The ministry has signed and implemented a memorandum of understanding with South Korea to send Vietnamese workers to the country under the Employment Permit System. Preparation-of-labour cooperation MoUs with Thailand and with Malaysia are under way.

The ministry’s Department of Overseas Labour spent the past few months helping enterprises finalise contracts to send labourers to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and to send apprentices to Japan for the construction and shipbuilding sectors.

The department also implemented training programmes to improve vocational foreign-language skills and other requirements for people looking for domestic work in Taiwan.

Vietnam and Germany also signed a letter of intent regarding Vietnamese citizens working in Germany as caregivers. The agreement is an opportunity to increase the number of Vietnamese permitted to work there by 500 to 700 a year.