Finding a job is difficult, so I left the city and returned to the countryside.

Workers and laborers continuously face difficulties and cannot find jobs, so they have no choice but to leave the city and return to the countryside - Photo: C.TRIEU

Workers have no home or significant assets, so when they leave the city to return to their hometown, they think the same way they did when they moved to a new place. But there are also people who leave the city with the hope of a new opportunity.

Not sure what to do tomorrow

It has been almost 10 years since Pham Van Tin (28 years old) last had a year-end reunion with his high school classmates. The reason is that after graduation, Tin left his hometown in the Central region and moved to Dong Nai to live. However, the salary of a shoemaker is not too high, and his hometown is far away, requiring many expenses, so the number of times he returned home to visit his hometown was also low.

At this year-end class reunion, Tin was the most enthusiastic person in the group. He said loudly: "From now on, I'll stay here and not go in there anymore. If my friends have anything to do, please introduce me to them."

Although workers' salaries are not high, if they know how to spend sparingly, they can save a little. However, in the past two years, overtime has been almost non-existent, income has been continuously decreasing while rent and food costs have "skyrocketed", causing Tin to be under a lot of pressure.

Tin also changed jobs hoping to find a better one, but it didn't get much better, and he also lost his seniority salary. No degree, no skills, and his CV with "nearly 10 years of experience as a worker" didn't help. Having no other choice, Tin decided to leave the city and return to the countryside.

At the year-end reunion party, we laugh and talk happily after a long time, but deep down, the days ahead are days with no clear future.

"If I try to hold on, I'll probably get through the day, but if the situation continues like this for a long time, it won't be good. Even though I honestly don't know what to do when I get home, at least I have a cool house instead of renting, and I'm close to my parents" - Tin said sadly.

I used to think that since I had a stable house, I would stay in the city forever, but I never expected the difficulties to come and last so long. It was hard to find a job, and even if I did, it wasn't suitable, plus life was too suffocating, so I had to go back.

Mr. DAO DUY NGOC (Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City)

Difficulty is also opportunity

Welcoming the recent Giap Thin New Year was also the most special homecoming trip for the family of Mr. Hoang Anh Quoc (40 years old, from Thua Thien Hue ). The trip was also the day the whole family officially left the land of love, Ho Chi Minh City, after 22 years of living there.

After graduating from the post and telecommunications industry and becoming a technical staff member of a large telecommunications company, Anh Quoc was soon able to buy a house in Ho Chi Minh City. Many years ago, he and some friends pooled their capital to open a company and initially did quite well. But after two years of economic difficulties, his company also struggled when the supply chain was disrupted.

Many of his company's orders were difficult to complete. Meanwhile, unsold goods piled up in the warehouse, and bad debts increased dramatically.

But all the debts were bad, some even ran away while every day they woke up shocked by the bank interest rates. Quoc decided to sell the house, pay off all the debts, and move the whole family back to Hue to live.

He had to start almost from scratch, and it was difficult to continue his work in telecommunications. Quoc chose to become a technology driver as a way to return to his hometown, but it felt like a new land after so much time away from home.

"There is information that Hue is about to become a centrally-governed city, so there will probably be a lot of potential and opportunities. It is difficult to leave Ho Chi Minh City, but maybe that is an opportunity for me to catch up with the development trend in my hometown, and being close to my family is still better" - Mr. Quoc said.

City house for rent, back to the countryside to live

The journey back to the countryside with Dao Duy Ngoc's family (30 years old, Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City) was a bit easier. Ngoc worked as a truck driver for seven years, then worked as a chef for four years.

But the COVID-19 pandemic swept through, leaving Ngoc unemployed. Post-COVID-19, he struggled to continue his career as a chef, but he finally officially quit in October 2023 because the salary was too low to survive.

Over the past five months, Ngoc has managed to work as a motorbike taxi driver. He said that there were days when he worked 10 hours straight, and some days he worked nonstop, earning up to 3 million VND/day. But there were also days when he had the app open from morning to night and still could not reach the minimum quota (about 450,000 VND/day).

He and his wife currently live in a three-story townhouse in Binh Tan District (HCMC). They plan to rent it out at the end of March and then move to Vung Tau.

Explaining, Ngoc said: "Partly I'm fed up with the cramped city and stuffy living space, but mostly because I find work increasingly difficult. Even though I've tried hard, I don't see any significant achievements."

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/kiem-viec-kho-bo-pho-ve-que-20240307085202481.htm