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Students receive career guidance at a job fair in Bac Giang Province, northern Vietnam, February 2025. Photo by VnExpress/Hong Chieu |
The GSO released its labor and employment report for the first quarter of 2025 on April 6, noting that this figure increased by 84,400 compared to the previous quarter but decreased by 66,900 year-on-year.
The proportion of young people not in employment or training is higher in rural areas at 11.7% and is 8.2% in urban areas. The rates are 11.5% for women and 9.3% for men.
The unemployment rate for this age group is 7.93%.
The GSO noted that while this figure has declined slightly compared to both the previous quarter and the same period in 2024, it is not significant.
Overall, the labor market in the first three months of the year followed its typical pattern during the Lunar New Year period, with both the labor force and unemployment figures shrinking compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, but they increased year-on-year.
The workforce figure for people aged 15 and over reached 52.9 million people, an increase of 532,000 from the same period last year.
The number of employed workers was estimated at 51.9 million, down 234,000 from the previous quarter.
By sector, services had the largest share of 40.7%, equivalent to 21.1 million workers, an increase of nearly 600,000 year-on-year.
Employment in industry and construction fell to 17.3 million, accounting for 33.3% of the workforce, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries employed 13.5 million workers, or 26%.
Incomes showed signs of improvement in early 2025. The average monthly income for workers rose by VND131,000 (1.6%) from the previous quarter and VND720,000 from last year to VND8.3 million ($321).
Urban workers earned almost 1.4 times the wages rural workers did, at VND10.1 million to VND7.2 million.
Some provinces recorded particularly notable income gains. In Vinh Phuc, workers earned an average of VND9.9 million per month, an increase of VND1 million.
By sector, service workers continued to earn the highest average income of VND9.9 million per month, up VND832,000 from the previous year.
In agriculture, forestry and fisheries, incomes rose by VND434,000 to an average of VND4.9 million.
Workers in industry and construction earned an average of VND9.1 million, up 690,000.In the processing and manufacturing sector, incomes reached VND9.1 million after rising by VND667,000.
Those in the finance, banking and insurance sector earned VND13.9 million, up 800,000.
