Workers are seen at a plant of Viet Tien Garment SJC. As many as 1.3 million Vietnamese people were left unemployed in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic - PHOTO: THANH HOA

Vu Thi Thu Thuy, head of the department, said the number of jobless people is the highest in a decade, Tuoi Tre Online newspaper reported.

Thanks to the economic recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020, the labor market also showed some positive signs.

However, the number of laborers and jobs and laborers’ incomes still fell in the final quarter of 2020 and the whole year.

In the last quarter of 2020, some 1.2 million people were left jobless, up 136,800 people over the same period in 2019.

According to the GSO, 32.1 million people aged from 15 were affected by the pandemic, including those who lost their jobs and saw their working hours and incomes reduced.

Of the total, 69.2% of laborers saw their incomes shrinking, 39.9% worked for fewer hours or were furloughed and 14% were forced to quit.

Thuy added that the service sector was most affected by the pandemic with 71.6% of laborers being affected. The industry and construction sector came in second, followed by the agro-forestry-fishery sector, with 64.7% and 26.4% of laborers being affected, respectively.

Despite a hiring rise in the last quarter of last year over the two previous quarters, the number of jobless people was high in the second quarter. Therefore, the number of laborers aged from 15 in 2020 plummeted 1.3 million people over 2019 to 53.4 million.

The trend was completely contrary to the trend in 2010-2019, when the number of people with jobs increased by 600,000 on average.

The pandemic also caused a shortage of jobs. Without Covid-19, an additional 1.6 million laborers would have jobs.

Moreover, the average monthly income of workers was VND5.5 million each last year, down 2.3% against 2019.

The monthly incomes of laborers in the service sector faced the largest fall of some VND215,000, followed by those in the agro-forestry-fishery sector with a reduction of VND156,000 and the industry and construction sector with a decline of VND100,000.

Nearly 70 percent of labourers suffer income reduction due to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow on the Vietnamese labour market, with 69.2 percent of labourers receiving less income than before pandemic, heard a press conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) on January 6.

Deputy head of the GSO Pham Quang Vinh said a total of 32.1 million workers aging 15 and above were affected by the adverse impact of the pandemic in 2020.

Of the total, 39.9 percent suffered cuts to working hours or were put on temporary rotational leave, while 14 percent lost their jobs or were furloughed.

The service sector was the most heavily impacted, with 71.6 percent of its workers affected, followed by the industrial and construction sector with 64.7 percent. Meanwhile, the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector fared better with only 26.4 percent of the workforce impacted.

Vinh said the labour market in Quarter 4 improved from the previous quarters, with higher income and lower unemployment rate in urban areas but still at the highest for the same period of the past decade.

According to Deputy Director of the International Labour Organisation in Vietnam Valentina Barcucci, the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has affected employment and natural disasters worsened the situation.

However, she said, there are many reasons to be optimistic about jobs thanks to economic recovery.

Head of the GSO’s population and labour statistics department Vu Thi Thu Thuy said nearly 1.2 million people faced unemployment in 2020, up 277,800 as compared to 2019.

The average monthly income in 2020 reached 5.5 million VND (239.1 USD), 128,000 VND lower than last year.

The average income of workers in urban areas was 1.5 times higher than that in rural areas (7 million VND and 4.7 million VND, respectively).

Wage rate for men is 1.4 times higher than for female employees (6.4 million VND and 4.5 million VND, respectively)./.SGT/VNA