What Does It Cost to Delay Hiring in Vietnam?
When foreign companies consider entering Vietnam, one question comes up quickly:
“How much will it cost to hire?”
That is a reasonable question.
Salary, statutory contributions, payroll and other employment-related costs all need to be considered.
But there is another question that is less often discussed:
“What does it cost if we wait?”
Not every company should hire immediately.
Sometimes, waiting is the right decision.
But for companies that already have customers, operations or business opportunities in Vietnam, delaying the first local hire can also create costs that do not appear on a payroll budget.
The Cost We Don't Usually Put on the Spreadsheet
Imagine a company has started doing business in Vietnam.
There are already customers to respond to, suppliers to coordinate with, and local market information to understand.
But there is no local employee yet.
Someone from the regional office may need to handle these tasks remotely.
At first, this may seem manageable.
Then the workload grows.
Meetings need to be scheduled across teams.
Customer questions take longer to resolve.
Local administrative matters require more coordination.
People who were hired to run the regional business start spending time on Vietnam-specific tasks.
None of these necessarily appears as an “employment cost”.
But they still consume resources.
The Real Hiring Equation
This is why we think the hiring question should not be reduced to:
Employment Cost
vs.
No Employment Cost
A more useful way to look at it is:
Cost of Hiring
+
Cost of Not Hiring
=
Total Cost of the Decision
The second number is harder to measure.
But that does not make it irrelevant.
What Can the Cost of Waiting Look Like?
It can take different forms depending on the business.
- Time — A regional team may spend hours handling tasks that could otherwise sit with someone locally.
- Speed — Customer requests, supplier communication and local decisions may take longer when everything is coordinated from outside Vietnam.
- Local Knowledge — Someone working directly in the market can often provide context that is difficult to obtain remotely.
- Management Capacity — Senior employees may end up handling operational tasks simply because there is no local resource to take ownership.
- Opportunity — Perhaps the hardest one to measure. If a business opportunity requires local attention, delaying the right hire may mean responding more slowly when timing matters.
But Should Every Foreign Company Hire Immediately?
No.
And this is important.
The point is not that hiring early is always better.
For some businesses, the initial operation may be small enough to manage without a local employee.
For others, the business may not yet have enough activity to justify a full-time position.
The better question is:
“At what point does the cost of managing Vietnam remotely become greater than the cost of having local support?”
That point will be different for every company.
A Better Way to Think About Your First Hire
Instead of starting with:
“Can we afford an employee?”
foreign investors could also ask:
“What are we currently spending to operate without one?”
Look at:
- Time spent by overseas teams
- Cost of coordination
- Operational delays
- Management attention
- Missed or delayed opportunities
Then compare that with the actual cost of establishing and maintaining a local employment arrangement.
The purpose is not to make hiring look cheaper.
It is to make the decision itself more complete.
The First Hire Is a Business Decision
Employment cost matters.
But it is only one side of the equation.
For a foreign company entering Vietnam, the first local hire can also be a decision about:
- speed,
- local presence,
- management capacity,
- and how much of the operation the company wants to manage remotely.
There is no universal “right time” to hire.
But there should be a clear reason behind the timing.
The Takeaway
If your Vietnam operation is still at the exploration stage, waiting may make perfect sense.
But if the business is already generating customers, suppliers, projects or operational activity, it may be worth asking a different question:
Not just “What will an employee cost us?”
But also “What is our current cost of operating without one?”
That is often a more useful starting point for deciding when to build a local team.
Remoly's Perspective
For foreign companies entering Vietnam, hiring decisions are rarely just about salary.
They are also about how the business wants to operate locally.
The right timing depends on the company's business model, activity level and growth plans.
The important part is to evaluate both sides of the decision before making it.
