9.1 million labourers affected by COVID-19 in Q1
As many as 9.1 million Vietnamese people aged 15 and above were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the first quarter of this year, Director of the Department of Population and Labour Statistics under the General Statistics Office (GSO) Pham Hoai Nam told a press conference on April 16.
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| Participants at the press conference. |
Nam said that of those affected, 540,000 people lost their jobs and 2.8 million had to temporarily cease business and production activities.
Meanwhile, 3.1 million people said they had their hours cut or were forced to take time off from work, while 6.5 million workers reported reductions in their income.
Workers in urban areas were more severely affected than those in rural areas, with 15.6 percent of those in urban areas still affected, compared to 10.4 percent in rural areas.
Nguyen Minh Huy, deputy director of the department, said Viet Nam recorded fewer workers in the first quarter of 2021 both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. Viet Nam has long posted rising numbers of workers each year.
The workforce totalled 51 million people in the quarter, down 1.1 million quarter-on-quarter and nearly 181,000 year-on-year.
The GSO said the third wave of COVID-19 in Viet Nam affected the recovery of the country’s labour market, pushing a lot of people, especially women, into the informal economy.
The number of employed workers aged 15 and over in the first quarter was 49.9 million, down more than 959,000 against the previous quarter and nearly 178.000 against the same period last year.
(Source: VNA)
