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This report presents the highlights of the 2013 School-to-work Transition Survey (SWTS) and the Labour Demand Enterprise Survey (LDES) run together with the General Statistics Office of Viet Nam within the framework of the ILO Work4Youth Project. The SWTS is a unique survey instrument that generates relevant labour market information on young people aged 15 to 29 years. The survey captures longitudinal information on transitions within the labour market, thus providing evidence of the increasingly tentative and indirect paths to decent and productive employment that today's young men and women face.

The main findings are that: (1) too many young people are not benefiting fully from the education system; (2) social inequalities persist regarding access to education; (3) youth qualifications fail to match firms' requirements; (4) while unemployment may be higher among the better educated, the results clearly show that investing in education brings positive returns to youth in terms of wages and access to the 'better' jobs; (5) the vast majority of youth in Viet Nam are working, but the quality of employment is often low, which does not allow the youth (and the country) to make the most of their economic potential; (6) designing effective employment services is a vital step; and (7) sex and level of educational attainment are good determinants of who does better in the labour market transition.

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