The statistics were announced by the Bureau of Employment under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) at a workshop yesterday on informal employment in Vietnam, co-organised by the department and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

According to Doan Mau Diep, Deputy Minister of MOLISA, the country has over 18 million informal workers, accounting for 57% of total nonagricultural employment nationwide. This figure does not include the number of labourers in the agricultural sector. If 22 million agricultural workers included, the total number of informal workers in Vietnam could reach 40 million, accounting for more than 70% of the total labour force.

Diep said that the informal sector is the “buffer zone” absorbing labour from non-farm and enterprise sectors, creating flexibility for the economy. However, this is a group of unstable workers, without labour contracts but long working time and low income. The average wage of informal workers is lower than that of formal workers in all employment positions. This requires a system of policies to support each typical group of informal workers to formulate jobs, along with solutions and policies both in the immediate and long terms, including economic solutions.

Informal employment is an important part of the Vietnamese labour market and has played an important role in attracting and employing of workers, especially simple workers with limited qualifications. The handling of labour towards more productive employment generation and tackling vulnerability of informal workers would contribute to better employment environment and productivity for all.

According to Nguyen Khac Giang, from Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research, there are many reasons for the high unemployment rate in the informal sector, such as the economy has not recovered from the global financial crisis with economic growth at 5.91% per year ,during 2011-2015, down sharply from the previous period.

In order to reduce the share of informal sector employment, experts said that vocational training should be strengthened to improve the ability and qualifications of labourers to obtain more employment opportunities.

Meanwhile, it is necessary to enhance and improve the quality of labour market forecasts in the short and long terms, while improving the system of labour management and effectively implementing programmes and projects to create jobs. In addition, there should be the loosening policies to create favourable conditions for enterprises to further develop.

Nhan Dan