Just Transition in Southeast Asia: Green Jobs, Skills, and Who Gets Left Behind

A green economy is often explained through complex words: decarbonisation, circular economy, green finance, renewable energy, and net-zero targets.

But behind every policy is a human question.

Who gets the new jobs?

Who loses old ones?

Who has access to training?

Who can adapt, and who is left behind?

For Vietnam and Southeast Asia, this question is becoming increasingly important. Countries across the region are setting green growth, climate, and energy goals. But ambition alone does not guarantee fairness. A transition can create new opportunities, but it can also reveal gaps in skills, social protection, participation, and support for smaller businesses.

This is why just transition matters.

A just transition means that the shift to a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy should also be fair. It should create decent work, protect affected workers, support communities, strengthen sustainable enterprises, and make sure that the benefits of green growth are not limited to those who are already well positioned. The International Labour Organization frames just transition as a way to manage the shift towards low-carbon economies while promoting decent work, social protection, and social dialogue among governments, workers, and employers

Workers in green job (by Los Muertos Crew on Pexels)

In short, a just transition is not only about creating green jobs. It is about making sure that workers can access them, small enterprises can participate, vulnerable communities are protected, and the benefits of the green economy are shared more fairly.

Why Just Transition Matters for Vietnam and Southeast Asia 

Vietnam’s transition does not happen in isolation. Across Southeast Asia, countries are trying to grow their economies while reducing emissions, protecting natural resources, and adapting to climate risks.

The Asian Development Bank’s 2026 report, Advancing the Green Economy Transition in ASEAN, assesses the region’s green economy transition across areas such as green economy metrics, job creation, policies, regulations, and investment opportunities. It also highlights that ASEAN is trying to balance economic growth with environmental sustainability amid industrialisation, urbanisation, rising emissions, deforestation, and resource depletion.

This shows that just transition is a regional issue, not only a national one. Southeast Asia’s green economy can create new jobs and business opportunities. But it can also affect workers in traditional sectors, small enterprises with limited resources, informal workers, rural communities, coastal communities, and people whose livelihoods depend directly on land, forests, fisheries, tourism, and natural resources.

The question, then, is not only how fast the region can become greener. It is also how fairly the transition can be managed. To understand this, we need to look at both sides of the transition: who may benefit from new green opportunities, who may face new risks, and what kinds of support are needed to balance the process.

Who Could Win? New Green Jobs and New Opportunities

The green economy can create real opportunities for Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

ADB notes that green investments can generate jobs, especially in renewable energy, sustainable construction, and circular economy sectors. The same report highlights that green jobs in ASEAN can appear across agriculture, energy, manufacturing, construction, tourism, and waste management.

The potential winners of the green economy could include solar technicians, energy auditors, green building workers, sustainable farmers, waste-management innovators, repair and recycling businesses, environmental data specialists, trainers, engineers, and local MSMEs that can enter new green value chains.

But green jobs do not emerge on their own.

They need policy support, investment, training, certification, employer demand, and coordination between education systems and labour markets. A green economy may open the door to more secure and prosperous livelihoods, but people still need realistic pathways to enter them.

Who Could Lose? Workers and Communities at Risk

Every transition creates movement and change. Some sectors grow, while others shrink. Some skills become more valuable, while others become less secure.

This is where the green transition becomes politically and socially challenging.

Workers in carbon-intensive industries, fossil fuel supply chains, traditional manufacturing, or resource-dependent sectors may face uncertainty. Small businesses may struggle to meet new environmental standards. Informal workers may be excluded from training, finance, and social protection. Rural and coastal communities may face climate risks and economic transition risks at the same time.

ADB warns that some traditional industries, including coal mining, fossil-fuel power, and certain manufacturing subsectors, may experience employment losses as ASEAN shifts towards sustainability. The report also notes that around 37% of jobs in the region are directly tied to ecosystem services and natural resources, including more than 100 million workers in farming, fishing, forestry, and nature-based tourism.

A GIZ sectoral study on TVET for renewable energies, citing ILO estimates, notes that the green energy transition could create 25 million jobs by 2030, but almost 7 million jobs may be lost, mainly in oil production and refining, coal mining, and coal-fired power generation. The same study stresses that affected workers need access to skills, qualifications, labour-market services, and welfare support so they can benefit from new opportunities.

This is why just transition is not only about creating new green jobs. It is also about supporting those who may be displaced, excluded, or made more vulnerable by the transition.

Green Jobs Are Not Automatically Inclusive

The green economy has the potential to create jobs, but access to these jobs is not always equitable.

Globally, women represent 32% of the full-time renewable energy workforce. But their participation falls to 28% in STEM-related roles, 22% in medium-skilled jobs such as renewable energy component installation and construction, and only 19% in senior management or board roles, according to IRENA’s 2025 gender perspective on renewable energy.

This shows why just transition policies cannot be measured only by the number of green jobs created. They also need to consider who can access these jobs, who advances in them, and who remains excluded.

For Vietnam and Southeast Asia, this matters for women, young people, informal workers, rural communities, ethnic minorities, workers in vulnerable sectors, and smaller businesses with limited access to capital and training.

A transition is not automatically fair because it is green. Fairness has to be designed into the transition.

What the Green Economy Tracker Shows

The Green Economy Tracker helps make the just transition discussion more practical.

It does not only look at emissions reduction goals or clean energy uptake. It benchmarks the adoption of 21 key green economy policies across 50 countries, covering themes such as governance, finance, sectors, just transition, nature, and green recovery measures.

For Vietnam, this is particularly relevant. The country’s Green Economy Tracker profile shows progress in green growth planning and sectoral policy, but it also points to important implementation questions. The profile notes that Vietnam’s green growth, climate, and circular economy frameworks are extensive and ambitious on paper, while implementation remains uneven, fragmented across the country, and often slow to take shape.

That is not just a governance detail. It affects people.

A country may have strong green growth planning, but if workers are not retrained, MSMEs are not supported, and vulnerable communities are not protected, the transition may appear effective on paper while remaining inconsistent in practice.

Can Green Skills Training Keep Up with the Energy Transition?

Green skills are one of the main factors that determine who benefits from the green economy.

Workers with access to training, certification, and practical experience are more likely to transition into new green jobs. Workers without access may be left competing for lower-quality or insecure work.

This is why the skills gap is not only an education problem. It is also a fairness issue.

Southeast Asia needs workers who can install, operate, maintain, manage, and improve green systems and infrastructure. This includes technical skills for renewable energy, circular economy, sustainable agriculture, waste management, green buildings, and clean transport. It also includes broader skills such as problem-solving, communication, adaptability, resilience, systems thinking, and the ability to keep learning.

The ASEAN Magazine article on green skills argues that turning ASEAN’s low-carbon, climate-resilient, and resource-efficient vision into action depends on people. It highlights the growing demand for a skilled and adaptable workforce as cities and industries move towards sustainable practices.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training, or TVET, plays a central role here. TVET institutions can help prepare workers for green jobs. But curricula must be updated, trainers must understand new green and digital technologies, and training should be connected to real labour-market demand.

For Vietnam, this question is already visible in the Green Economy Tracker profile. The profile notes that Vietnam’s National Green Growth Strategy and National Action Plan include measures to develop green skills, but also points to gaps in the definition and assessment of green jobs and the maturity of training systems for emerging green sectors.

A just transition relies not only on creating green jobs, but also on developing the skills systems that enable people to access them.

How Do We Balance the Just Transition?

Balancing the just transition does not mean slowing down climate action. It means making climate action stronger by making it fairer.

ADB stresses that green jobs will not emerge automatically. They must be created, supported, and aligned with the evolving needs of industries and workers. This requires practical steps: identifying which sectors may be affected, preparing workers for new opportunities, strengthening social protection, investing in skills, and ensuring that affected communities can participate in policymaking.

This is the central message of just transition: fairness needs design.

Visit Vietnam’s Green Economy Tracker profile to explore the evidence behind the scores and review the sources. A greener and fairer economy requires more than ambitious targets. It also requires participation, implementation, transparency, and continuous public learning. You can help keep the profile current by clicking the “Have Your Say” button and sharing relevant information or feedback.

This article was contributed by su-re.co and IIED Europe to strengthen public understanding, participation, and evidence-based discussion around the Green Economy Tracker, a policy analysis platform developed by the Green Economy Coalition. Stay tuned for the next blog in this series.