Across Southeast Asia, a quiet revolution is transforming the job market. In Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila, conversations once dominated by college credentials now centre on skills. The region’s economic story—often told through growth charts and trade data—is increasingly being written in another language: English. And the question many employers are asking is simple: can your workforce communicate?
The rise of the skills-first economy
For years, Southeast Asia’s advantage was demographic – a young, ambitious workforce ready to fuel growth. But in 2025, the region’s edge is shifting from youth to skill. The 2025 ETS Human Progress Report (HR Edition) underscores this shift: across markets, both employers and workers are prioritising verified skill growth, continuous learning, and objective benchmarking.
In Vietnam, employees are actively seeking clarity on where they stand: 82% want to benchmark their skills against industry peers. Yet there’s a gap between expectation and experience—95% say personalised growth pathways are important for retention, while only 46% report actually receiving them (a 49-point gap). In Indonesia, momentum is similarly strong: 82% want benchmarking, 96% say skills credentials improve their career trajectory, and 47% already have access to employer-provided AI coaching—though personalised growth access (40%) still trails perceived importance (76%) by 36 points.
Across the region, this “skills-first” wave is reshaping hiring, pay, and professional identity. In a world of automation, the human advantage increasingly comes down to communication: listening, writing, persuading, and collaborating across borders.
Why communication is the missing skill link
Every CEO in Southeast Asia seems to agree on one thing: technical skills can be trained, but communication cannot be improvised. Yet for too long, communication has been the invisible competency—valued but rarely measured. Informal interviews or self-assessments left too much room for bias. That’s changing as workers lean into objective validation: majorities want assessments that gauge proficiency and recommend ways to advance, and many would turn to technology for guidance—including 78% of employees in Vietnam and 78% in Indonesia who say they would trust an AI career coach to guide their trajectory.
Credentials are no longer just a ticket to a new job; they are a currency for internal mobility, promotions, and retention. For employers, verified assessments reduce uncertainty in hiring and performance reviews. For employees, they offer a tangible pathway to prove competence and confidence.
Standardisation builds trust.
This is where standardised assessments such as TOEIC—the Test of English for International Communication—play a crucial role. Across global enterprises and regional SMEs alike, TOEIC provides a common, research-backed measure of workplace English proficiency, focusing on how effectively an employee can read, listen, and communicate in real-world professional settings. When employers and employees share a trusted measurement language, they can better align learning outcomes with labour-market needs—creating shared understanding across languages, sectors, and borders.
Why this matters for employers
Employers across Southeast Asia are under pressure to identify, train, and retain talent at unprecedented speed. Yet while technical certifications abound, few tools offer reliable insight into communication readiness—the very skill that drives customer satisfaction, leadership potential, and team productivity.
What employees say they need—and what many still lack—offers a roadmap:
Objective benchmarking: Strong demand in Vietnam (82%) and Indonesia (82%) for benchmarking against industry peers.
Personalised growth paths: Large gaps between importance and access—Vietnam (95% vs. 46%), Indonesia (76% vs. 40%)—signal where L&D and manager tooling can have an outsized impact.
AI-enabled guidance: High trust in AI coaching (78% in both Vietnam and Indonesia) and meaningful access already in place in Indonesia (47%) suggest readiness for scalable, data-driven development.
These practices lead directly to better client retention, easier international collaboration, and greater brand credibility.
A region on the brink of a skills dividend
Southeast Asia stands at a pivotal moment. With hundreds of millions of working-age citizens, it holds one of the world’s largest potential skills dividends. Realising that dividend depends on ensuring that every learner and employee has access to credible, portable proof of their capabilities.
For workers, verified communication credentials open doors to better pay, cross-border assignments, and leadership opportunities. For employers, they reduce risk, boost productivity, and anchor the trust essential to global operations.
The road ahead
In a skills-first economy, trust is the new infrastructure. Governments, universities, and employers must collaborate to ensure that learning and assessment systems are transparent, portable, and inclusive. English-language proficiency will remain a cornerstone of that trust architecture—the common professional language that enables innovation, trade, and talent in the region.
The next chapter of Southeast Asia’s growth story will not be written in spreadsheets or code—it will be written in clear, confident English.
Authored by: Pushkar Saran, Executive Director – Southeast Asia and South Asia, Institutional Products, ETS