Cambodia Needs Four Times More Labor Forces by 2020

Phnom Penh– In response to the increasing number of tourists, Cambodia needs 200,000 more labor forces by 2020 while today only 20% of that proportion has been available, said Ministry of Tourism’s Secretary of State Pak Sokhom in a dissemination workshop on Tourism and Hospitality Assessment by Tourism Experts at the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia – NOCC with the participation from heads of Ministry of Tourism and many other trainees.

According to Secretary of State Sokhom, Cambodia’s cultural and eco-tourism is moving forward by ensuring stable growth annually with a 12 per cent contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

“As for future vision, Cambodia is on the way of developing its tourism toward a cultural and eco-tourism goal with warm hospitality and upholding the principle of cleanliness and greenness”, he continued adding that “By 2020, we need another 200,000 new labor forces, or 50,000 per year in response to the growing number of tourist and that currently we have only 20 per cent of the total labor forces needed who have been through tourism education or training at universities or at vocational training centers.”

“Nowadays, we only have small-scale training centers that can recruit 1,700 labor forces annually. To tackle the issue, the government allows the Ministry to establish two National Institutes of Tourism; one in Phnom Penh and the other in Sihanouk Ville that are capable of producing 1,300 labor forces per year as from 2019 onwards.

Sokhom also congratulated two tourism students from an NGO, PSE, who won medals for outstanding restaurant servicing from the 11th ASEAN Skills Competition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on September 19-29, 2016.