Vietnam Q4 unemployment rises to 2.32%

Vietnam’s unemployment rate inched up 0.04 percentage points from the third quarter of this year to 2.32% in the fourth quarter, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported.

The Q4 figures for 2021 and 2022 were 3.56% and 2.63%, respectively.

Overall, in 2022, the unemployment rate reached 2.32%, ranging from 2.79% in the urban areas to 2.03% in rural area. Notably, the unemployment rate was high at 7.72% for young people (age between 15 and 24). The whole-year underemployment rate was 2.21%.

Amid the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery, the workforce rose 239,400, or 0.5%, to 52.13 million from Q3 to Q4. Overall, the country’s workforce expanded 2.17% year-on-year to 51.66 million in 2022.

Of 50.6 million employed people, 13.91 million worked in the agriculture-forestry-fisheries sector, or 27.5% of the total; 16.97 million in industry and construction, or 33.6%; and 19.69 million in the service sector, or 38.9%.

The average monthly income of contracted laborers reached VND7.5 million ($317), up by VND992,000 or 15.24% year-on-year.

Workforce readiness

According to the GSO, Vietnam now runs 1,905 vocational training establishments. The system recruited 2.43 million people this year, exceeding the target by 16.5%. In the year, 2.1 million vocational training learners graduated, or 14.9% beyond the target.

The labor productivity reached $8,083 per worker in 2022, up by $622 or 4.8% after a year. The GSO attributed the development to the higher capacity of laborers, indicated by the rate of certified workers at 26.2%, up 0.1 percentage points year-on-year.

According to ManpowerGroup's Total Workforce Index™ 2022 report, Vietnam ranks 47th out of 60 global labor markets, and 11th among 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The index measures relatively ease of sourcing, hiring and retaining a workforce in competitive labor markets around the world.

Millennials and Gen Zers make up nearly one third of the country's workforce - about 65%. Boasting a young and abundant labor supply when many countries are struggling to solve the problem of aging population is one of the reasons why the Vietnam’s labor market is well considered by foreign investors, ManpowerGroup said.

Skill level is one of the areas of improvement for Vietnamese workers to catch up with other markets. Despite the high rate of net secondary education (about 88%), highly skilled workers make up only 11.67%, almost unchanged from three years ago.

According to the Vietnam Total Workforce Index 2022, the proportion of Vietnamese workers who are proficient in English accounts for only 5% of the total workforce.