The unemployment rate among people of working age is expected at 2.2 percent this year (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Expected stable economic growth in 2016 is projected to positively affect the labour market, curbing the unemployment rate among people of working age to 2.2 percent.
Following improvements last year, the outlook for the labour market is optimistic, said Director of the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs Nguyen Thi Lan Huong.
Vietnam will have around 55.3 million people in its workforce within the next 12 months, accounting for 77.8 percent of the population aged 15 and above. Among them, about 54.1 million are expected to have jobs, she added.
By the end of the year’s fourth quarter, the transport and storage industries will record an annual increase of 8.8 percent in the number of workers, which will rise 8.2 percent in processing and manufacturing, and 4.5 percent in information and communications.
Meanwhile, the figure will decline in mining (8.8 percent), as well as agriculture, forestry and fisheries (1.6 percent), Huong noted.
A recent labour market report by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs showed that 53.5 million people were employed in the last quarter of 2015, a slight rise from the preceding three months and a year before.
Meanwhile, more than 1.05 million people or 2.18 percent of the working-age population were idle during the quarter, down sharply from the third quarter but up slightly from the same period in 2014.-VNA
