Developing high quality human resources for sustainable labour market recovery

She noted that despite some positive signals, the labour market is facing great difficulties in the context of prolonged impacts such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and declining world demand.

Huong cited statistics of the GSO that showed the workforce and the number of workers with employment continued to rise in the second quarter of this year.

The number of workers from 15 years old and above increased by over 100,000 to 52.3 million compared to the previous quarter and by 700,000 compared to the same period last year. The  number of employed workers in the period reached almost 51.2 million, up 83,300 from Q1 and 691,400 from Q2 of 2022.

The average income of workers in Q2 this year was VND7 million, which showed only a slight improvement from last year.

However, the development of the labour market is not sustainable, as shown in unstable jobs, poor working conditions and low income, acording to Pham Hoai Nam, director of the GSO’s population and labour department.  

The flow of labour from the formal sector to informal sector is increasing due to increasing layoff of enterprises.

The GSO director general proposed that the Government continue to effectively implement support policies targeting enterprises and workers, launch more events to stimulate domestic demand as well as promote exports, and help seek more export markets.

Nam suggested that ministries, sectors and localities implement measures to develop human resources, reshuffle vocational training facilities to improve training quality and continue to provide vocational training and retraining for labourers.