VietNamNet Bridge – The environmental disaster caused by Formosa in the central region of Vietnam has greatly influenced the unemployment rates in central provinces.

According to the latest report of the Vietnam General Statistics Office, the number of unemployed in the third quarter of 2016 was more than 1.16 million people, an increase of 40,000 compared with the second quarter. The increase in the same period of last year was only 25,000.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Xuan Mai – head of the Statistics of Population and Labor of the Vietnam General Statistics Office - said the environmental incident in the four central provinces in April was one of the main causes of this situation. 

"The Formosa incident certainly made the unemployment rate in some central provinces increase, but the level of influence was different in each province," Mai said.

In Ha Tinh province alone, the incident affected nearly 23,000 households and thousands of workers. Of these, nearly 24,500 people lost their jobs; 19,500 were fully unemployed; and nearly 5,000 had temporary work only. 

"After the environmental incident, the rate of unemployment in Ha Tinh rose from 1.05% to 16.45% in March," Mai said.

Ha Tinh has boosted the labor export program but this could help a small part of the unemployed laborers. 

By the end of August, more than 15,000 people in Ha Tinh went overseas to work. In the coming time, 17,000 others will also go abroad, mainly to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan ... to work as sailors and domestic help.

Of the remaining provinces, Quang Binh suffered the worst so the unemployment rate in this province has risen by 1.1% since the incident occurred. 

In Quang Tri, the impact of this incident was minor as a large number of workers went overseas to work.

Of the new 40,000 unemployed, many are new graduates.

Le Ha