Leading the group of quitters, is the real estate brokerage profession over?

Quit job due to lack of work

According to the labor market report for the second quarter of 2023 of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the five occupational groups with the most job seekers are real estate brokerage, textiles, food and beverage, logistics, and insurance. While most other occupations are generally affected by the instability of the world economy , causing a shortage of orders, the real estate brokerage profession is currently being severely affected because the domestic real estate market has not yet recovered.

Once a job that attracted many workers since 2018, the brokerage profession is considered a high-income job. Even for those with ability, changing their lives through real estate brokerage is a story that is mentioned a lot. Just by brokering the sale of a few plots of land, a broker can "pocket" hundreds, even billions of dong. This is a large amount of money that many other professions find difficult to earn in a short time.

Meanwhile, real estate brokerage jobs do not even require much in terms of qualifications. Participants in the trading floors will be trained on-site, through groups and ready to enter the market in a short time. Therefore, at the end of 2022, when the frozen market cut off the income of real estate brokers. Thousands of brokers participating in the market during the peak period at the beginning of the year had to quit their jobs or work multiple jobs in parallel waiting for the market to recover.

The brokerage profession is at the top of the list of professions with many workers looking for work.

According to a survey by the Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS), although the market has shown signs of recovery, the transaction volume is less than 50% of last year. This has caused many businesses to report losses or even close, leading to the number of active real estate brokers being only about 30-40% compared to the end of 2022.

The number of workers who remain are those who have worked for a long time in the profession and are still able to maintain their lives through a small number of transactions in the market. The majority of those who have left the profession are new employees or people with low capacity, unskilled, and have not received proper training. These workers have difficulty adapting to sudden market fluctuations, so they cannot generate enough income to maintain their lives.

According to VARS, brokerage businesses or investors that have arranged sales brokerage departments have laid off 50% or more of their staff in various forms such as temporarily stopping signing contracts for 3-6 months, laying them off, or keeping them as collaborators.

This situation is even more “terrible” for small real estate companies, some of which now have only the leaders remaining, maintaining the company’s operations themselves. Many experts also commented that this is a common challenge to filter out incompetent brokerage units.

Hold on and wait for the upturn

According to a survey by the Institute of Economic - Financial - Real Estate Research Dat Xanh Services, by the end of June 2023, the number of brokers in the market had decreased by 60% - 70% compared to the end of 2022. The market is seriously lacking in salespeople as the rate of real estate brokers switching to other professions remains high. When surveyed, about 10% of brokers were still willing to quit their jobs, while only 19% said they would stick with it and do other jobs to earn income and stabilize their lives.

Of those who have moved on to other jobs, only 36% said they would return when the market recovers. A whopping 52% of those surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs and had no intention of returning this year.

There are still some real estate brokers waiting for the market to improve.

According to Mr. Nguyen Minh Tuan - Owner of a real estate trading floor in Hanoi , those who are staying in the market have many years of experience, communication skills, and the ability to assess and analyze products, so they still have income from the market.

“Although this income is not much compared to previous years, thanks to the accumulation of previous high income, these workers often have passive cash flow. Therefore, they are willing to hone their skills and learn new products while waiting for the market to recover. These are also the personnel who often appear in large and mid-sized companies, not leaving the market due to lack of income,” Mr. Tuan commented.

However, according to VARS data, more than 95% of respondents reported a decrease in income compared to the previous year. Of these, more than 14% said their income decreased by 20-30% compared to the same period. More than 54% of individuals recorded a decrease of 30-40%. In particular, about 5% of brokers had a decrease of more than 70% of income.

With a sharp decrease in income, if the market does not recover soon, many comments show that the number of real estate brokers quitting or being cut in the final period of the year will continue to increase.

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/dan-dau-nhom-bo-viec-nghe-moi-gioi-bat-dong-san-dang-het-thoi-post257733.html