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COVID-19 Dampens Vietnam Employment Figures

VOA News

   Communist Vietnam is one of the only nations in the world run by a
   workers' party, but even its eye-popping success at crushing COVID-19
   did not stop the pandemic from leaving nearly a million citizens out of
   work.

   Roughly 900,000 people are now unemployed, with another 18 million
   underemployed, according to the state General Statistics Office data
   for the first half of 2020. The record numbers underline how the
   pandemic is hurting even nations like Vietnam. It is the most populous
   nation in the world to report zero COVID-19 deaths, and it is one of
   the only economies that will grow this year. Even with those two
   relative successes, however, Vietnamhas tocontend with record
   unemployment, due in large part to the shrinking of demand for its
   products from nations worse hit by the disease.

   The toll is most stark in the cities. In the second quarter of 2020,
   urban unemployment hit a decade high of 4.46%, a figure that was 3.09%
   in the same period two years prior. The figure also marks a major
   turnaround from the first quarter of 2020, when the International Labor
   Organization office in Hanoi said employment levels "remained
   unaffected by the crisis" of COVID-19.

   "The complicated and unpredictable COVID-19 pandemic caused growth in
   most industries and sectors to slow down," the General Statistics
   Office said in a statement. "Unemployment and underemployment have
   increased greatly."

   Such jobless numbers are almost unheard of in Vietnam, where the norm
   has historically been sky-high trade growth, fueling the din of
   factories and construction day and night.

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