Vietnam struggles with paucity of AI engineers

IT recruiting firm TopDev said in a recent report that companies are having difficulty finding the right people due to a paucity of talents.

Salaries are going up as a result. An AI/machine learning engineer could earn up to $1,678 a month, or around $22,000 a year including bonuses and benefits.

This is higher than what a data scientist ($1,537 a month) or DevOps engineer ($1,505) gets. The latter handles both the development and operations of a product.

The report said the IT sector generally faces a big shortage as demand is set to go up from 320,000 engineers this year to 400,000 in 2020.

The shortfall is 75,000 this year, and set to increase to 100,000 in 2020.

But they face a struggle as 53 percent of 15,000 IT employees polled for the report are happy with their current job, and 59.8 percent do not want to change their job.

This leaves employers considering paying higher salaries to lure away people.

The average salary for experienced IT engineers now is $1,318.

Managers with over five years’ experience can earn from $1,550 to $2,350, while directors with over 10 years’ experience earn at least $2,300.

But there is a dearth of quality managers and engineers, the report added.

Gaku Echizenya, general director of Navigos Group, a leading recruitment company, recently said: "The market is experiencing major changes with the fourth industrial revolution. Therefore, businesses need to keep up-to-date with market information from reputable sources to respond promptly to changes, allowing them to set out a strategy to recruit and attract talented people."

Employees need to actively educate themselves in IT and digital knowledge, and develop crucial skills such as cooperation with others and people management to increase their competitiveness, he added.