Introduction
Many Japanese companies in Vietnam face difficulties when trying to hire accounting staff who can also work in Japanese. In practice, the number of candidates in Vietnam who can handle both Japanese communication and accounting work is quite limited, and companies often find that the candidate pool is much smaller than expected once they start recruiting.
This article explains why hiring Japanese-speaking accounting staff is difficult in Vietnam and outlines practical ways to respond.
1. Why are there so few people in Vietnam who can handle both Japanese and accounting work?
Japanese ability alone is not enough for accounting work
Accounting work requires much more than conversational ability. In practice, it often involves tasks such as:
- Understanding accounting and tax terminology
- Reading contracts, invoices, and internal regulations
- Providing accurate explanations during audits or tax inspections
- Reporting to the Japanese headquarters, including background, reasoning, and risk points
In other words, Japanese language ability alone is not enough. What companies often need is the ability to understand accounting and tax issues and explain them clearly in Japanese. This combination significantly increases the difficulty of hiring.
Education paths are separated from the beginning
In our view, the limited number of people who possess both Japanese ability and accounting experience is not mainly a matter of individual effort. A more important reason is that the education path and career path for these two skills are separated from the beginning.
In Vietnam, many people working in accounting-related roles typically graduate from accounting, auditing, or finance-related majors. Their education is heavily focused on technical subjects, and even when foreign language ability is required, English is usually given priority. Since students already need to spend substantial time on accounting and tax subjects, internships, and job hunting, it is often difficult for them to also reach a level of Japanese that is truly useful in practice.
Early career paths also tend to split
On the other hand, many people who are strong in Japanese from the beginning tend to graduate from Japanese language departments in Vietnam or study in Japan. In the case of Japanese language departments in Vietnam, the curriculum is usually centered on language and culture. For those who studied in Japan, their educational backgrounds vary, but in either case, opportunities to learn accounting and tax practice based on Vietnamese standards are quite limited.
This separation in education often leads directly to different early career paths.
- People who are strong in accounting tend to start their careers in in-house accounting roles, accounting firms, or audit firms, where they build accounting and tax experience.
- People who are strong in Japanese tend to start in roles such as interpreter, sales assistant, general affairs, or IT communicator at Japanese companies.
Why this makes Japanese-speaking accounting talent so rare
As a result, the combination of Japanese and accounting does not naturally increase in the market and tends to remain extremely rare. By contrast, English and accounting is more common and easier to hire because English is already built into entrance exams and university study, which creates a larger talent pool.
It is also worth noting that, in recent years, more people in Vietnam seem to be learning Chinese as a third language for career advancement, partly due to the increase in Chinese and Taiwanese investment in Vietnam. Against this background, it is difficult to expect a significant increase in the number of people choosing Japanese as their third language.
2. Why do Japanese companies in Vietnam look for accounting staff who can work in Japanese?
From the Japanese company side, the need usually falls into one of the following categories:
- Japanese expatriates or the Japanese headquarters strongly prefer Japanese communication
- Reporting to headquarters is required in Japanese
- The company wants to avoid relying on an interpreter between accounting staff and Japanese management
At the same time, companies need to be careful here. As noted above, once the hiring requirement assumes a person who can fully handle both Japanese and accounting practice, recruitment can easily stall.
3. Practical options when Japanese language support is required in accounting in Vietnam
Based on the above background, below are some practical approaches that companies can consider. There may be other options as well, but here we focus on approaches that are relatively realistic and commonly used in practice.
Option 1: Still try to hire a Japanese-speaking accounting candidate
If a company chooses this route, one important point is that careful assessment is essential. As explained above, there are not many opportunities for candidates to develop both Japanese ability and accounting capability to a strong level, so in many cases one side is weaker than expected. For that reason, both language ability and practical accounting capability need to be reviewed carefully.
Because Japanese-speaking accounting candidates are rare, competition for them is often strong. Companies should therefore think not only about how to identify such candidates, but also how to be chosen by them. For example:
- Set the salary range above the general market level
- Offer stronger Japanese language or qualification allowances
- Provide support for accounting or language training programs
- Clarify the job scope and career path
- Shorten the hiring process
Even after hiring, companies should keep in mind that these candidates are highly sought after in the market. If the person is asked to take on work they do not want simply because they can speak Japanese, such as ad hoc interpretation with business partners, it may increase the risk of resignation.
Option 2: Hire accounting staff without Japanese and separate Japanese support through interpretation or translation
A structural way to reduce hiring difficulty is to separate the roles.
- Accounting: hire someone who can operate in English or Vietnamese, with technical capability as the priority
- Japanese support: assign an interpreter or translator separately
The advantages of this approach are fairly clear.
- The talent pool for accounting hiring becomes much larger
- Companies can prioritize accounting expertise more directly
In Vietnam, it is also common for interpreters to handle some general affairs or administrative tasks at the same time, which makes this arrangement relatively practical from an operational perspective. Based on what we have seen in practice, this approach often works better in the end.
Conclusion
The difficulty of finding people in Vietnam who can handle both Japanese and accounting work is, in many cases, a structural issue. Although the number of Vietnamese JLPT test takers appears to be increasing statistically, once accounting practice is added to the equation, these candidates remain scarce in the hiring market.
When considering Japanese-speaking accounting talent, companies should move forward with a clear understanding of both their own internal needs and the realities of the hiring market. We hope this article can serve as one reference point in that process.
