Deputy General Director Hiroaki Ishihara of Rakuten Fintech Vietnam has shared his positive outlook on the impact that Vietnamese engineers will have on his company going forward. “There’s an abundance of young, skilled engineers in Vietnam, making it an ideal match for our needs,” Ishihara commented on the caliber of Vietnam’s IT talent in an interview with Tuoi Tre newspaper.

With Japan grappling with labor shortages and an aging demographic, Vietnam’s IT sector is becoming increasingly appealing. As Japan’s top e-commerce powerhouse, Rakuten is one of the Japanese firms leveraging Vietnamese human resources. According to a report by FPT Digital, Vietnam is home to nearly 400,000 IT engineers and sees over 50,000 IT graduates each year. Yet, only around 30 percent of these professionals are considered to meet the actual demands of the job market.

Out of Vietnam’s total labor force of 51 million, IT professionals make up about 1.1 percent, a figure that’s modest when compared to tech-forward nations such as the United States, South Korea, or India.