A job fair in Ho Chi Minh City. (Photo: VNA)

More than 1.4 million Vietnamese were unemployed in 2021, up 203,700 from the previous year or 17 percent, due to impacts of the worst-ever fourth wave of COVID-19 infections for months, data from the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed.

The new strategy on flexibly living with the pandemic has allowed the labour market to rebound in the final quarter of last year, GSO Deputy General Director Nguyen Trung Tien told a press conference announcing the labour data in Q4 of 2021 and Vietnam’s Human Development Index from 2016 – 2020 held in Hanoi on January 6.

The workforce of 15 years old and above reached 50.7 million in Q4, an increase of 1.7 million or 3.47 percent from the previous quarter. However, the figure is 1.4 million or 2.7 percent lower than the same period of 2020, he noted.

The workforce participation rate was 67.7 percent in the last quarter of 2021, up 2.1 percentage points quarter-on-quarter but down 2.6 percentage points year-on-year. The rate was higher in rural areas (69.3 percent) than urban areas (65.3 percent).

Compared to Q3, the number of workers in the informal sector rose by 7.4 percent to 19.4 million in Q4.

“It is obvious that the labour market was recovering but the recovery was not sustainable,” Tien said.

The workforce of 15 years old and above in 2021 was 50.5 million, down 791,600 from 2020. The urban workforce reached 18.6 million, accounting for 36.8 percent of the total. There were 23.5 million female workers nationwide, presenting 46.5 percent of the workforce.

According to the GSO, monthly income averaged 5.3 million VND (232.91 USD) in Q4, up 139,000 VND quarter-on-quarter but down 624,000 VND year-on-year. The average monthly income was 5.7 million VND for the whole year, down 32,000 VND year-on-year./.

Source: VNA