Over 200,000 workers lose jobs as orders dry up

Most had worked in places with many industrial parks and export processing zones such as Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City in the south and Bac Ninh Province in the north, according to the General Statistics Office.

The textile and garment, wood processing and electronics sectors had 142,500, 16,900 and 30,200 fewer workers in the second quarter, it said.

The pressure of job loss is creating a strong shift in labor from industry and construction to services, it said.
In the second quarter the number of unemployed people of working age was 1.07 million, and the jobless rate was 2.3%, according to the office.

The Mekong Delta and the southeastern region have the highest unemployment rates in the country. HCMC’s is 3.71%, up from the first quarter, while in Hanoi the rate fell to 1.23%.

According to labor reports from across the country, the number of furloughed workers in the second quarter was 241,500, down 52,500 from the previous quarter.

Most of them work for foreign-invested enterprises in the leather, footwear and textile industries in Bac Giang, Binh Duong, Ninh Binh, and Thanh Hoa provinces.

Companies have seen orders dry up since the fourth quarter last year, and furloughed or sacked hundreds of thousands of workers, according to the statistics office.

The labor market challenges are expected to persist partly due to the decline in global demand.