More than 32 million people in Vietnam were badly affected because of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Covid-19 badly affects 32.1 million jobs in Vietnam

The number was announced by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam in a press conference on January 6 on the employment rate in 2020.

Vu Thi Thuy Thuy from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam as of December 2020, 32.1 million people that were over 15 years old had been badly affected by Covid-19. Many of them lost jobs or had work hours reduced. 69.2% had their wages reduced and 14% had to close businesses temporarily.

The service sector is the most affected by Covid-19. 71.6% of the employees in this sector were affected. The industry and construction sector was in second place with 64.7% of the employees in this sector badly affected by Covid-19. The agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector followed with 26.4% of the employees affected.

Even though the situation improved since the third quarter of 2020, the numbers were still much lower compared to the pre-pandemic period. From 2016 to 2019, the workforce in Vietnam increased by 0.8% annually. Because of Covid-19, the workforce in Vietnam was 54.6 million people in 2020, about 1.6 million people less than expected.

“To put it another way, 1.6 million people couldn’t find jobs because of the pandemic,” Thuy said.

In the last quarter of 2020, nearly 54 million people over 15 years old had jobs, a decrease of 945,000 people compared to the same period in 2019. For the whole year, the number of people over 15 years old that had jobs was 53.4 million, a decrease of 1.3 million compared to 2019. It’s the first yearly decrease in the last decade in Vietnam.

The average monthly income in the fourth quarter was VND5.7 million (USD246), a decrease of VND108,000 compared to 2019.

In order to cope with the on-going pandemic and boost the economy, the General Statistics of Vietnam urged to simplify procedures to help firms access support policies more easily.