Continuing positive trends shown in last year’s job generation, Vietnam’s economy was projected to add more than 150,000 employment opportunities in the first quarter of 2018.
According to the data from the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs (ILSSA), the total number of employed workers could reach 54.2 million people. This figure is partly attributed by the long economic expansion as the GDP growth in the first three months of this year was likely to reach 6.3 percent, said ILSSA head Dao Quang Vinh during a meeting on the labour market.
Despite such new job gain, however, this number will be only half of what was created in the last quarter of 2017, when about 282,200 people in Vietnam secured a job, Vietnam News reports.
The ILSSA report on labour market in the fourth quarter of 2017 noted that there were 1.07 million unemployed, in which 20 percent of 215,300 were university graduates. While the report suggested that unemployment rate among college graduates have decreased significantly compared to the previous quarter, the pressure for Vietnamese government to generate more jobs remains heavy. Additionally, the government is also expected to improve university education quality to meet the market demand.
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On the other hand, those who went to vocational training schools were noted to find it easiest to secure a job among those with post-high school education. This trend could be seen from the number of unemployed vocational graduates stayed at 64,600 in the last quarter of 2017, dropping by 30,900 over the previous quarter, which represented the largest margin compared to workers from other educational backgrounds.
Mr Vinh further stated that the report also pointed out an increase in monthly wages in every sector, although such rises were not adequate to the economic growth. Employees holding university degrees were reportedly to be among those who receive the highest average salary, at about VNĐ7.74 million (US$344) a month.
On the contrary, workers from vocational schools got the lowest monthly wage, at VNĐ5.7 million on average. Regarding the rate of wage increase, unskilled employees benefited the most with an additional earning of VNĐ351,000, or about 5.8 per cent, coming to their salary over the previous quarter.
Related to this matter, Mr Vinh said, “The wages in general increased compared to the third quarter of 2017 and the same period in 2016. But the rate was still slow considering the fast GDP growth and other factors.”
“That might reflect the gap between reality and policy adjustments. I hope that such adjustments will see more clear results in the first quarter of 2018,” he added.
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