Hanoi (VNA) – The workforce of Vietnam hasrecovered quickly and the labour supply chain was not cracked down, Minister ofLabour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung told the National Assembly(NA)’s fourth session on October 28.

The minister said that to date, Vietnam has 51.9million labourers, 2.8 million higher than the figure recorded at thesame time last year, while the rate of new labourers joining the labour marketis 68.7%.

Currently, the unemployment rate is 2.28%, he said,underlining that Vietnam is among the countries with the lowest rate.

Regarding the implementation of support to people hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dung said that so far, 87 trillion VND (3.5 billion USD) has beenprovided as assistance to 56 million pandemic-affected labourers and more than730,000 employers.

The policies have greatly contributed to the economicrecovery and development, he said, citing statistics from the Statistics Office as showing that the average monthly income of labourers in the third quarter ofthis year was 7.6 million VND each, 1.6 million VND higher than that of 2021.In the service sector, the amount rose to over 8 million VND, he added.

The official also highlighted progress of the national targetprogramme on sustainable poverty reduction, with the majority of criteriareached.

According to the minister, improvement has also been seen invocational training activities in both scale and quality.

However, he pointed to a number of challenges in ensuringsocial welfare and poverty reduction. Currently, 2.4 million households areliving under and near the poverty line, accounting for 9% of the total households.

The number of labourers in the informal sector remains high,he said, adding that the poverty reduction target of this year is likely to becompleted but at a lowest level in many years.

Dung said that in the future, the ministry will continue togive advice to the Politburo and the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat toissue a directive on the strengthening of the Party leadership to vocationaltraining activities and the building of a flexible, modern, sustainable anddeveloped labour market.

It will advise the Government to issue a resolution onlabour market development, which focuses on the renovation and improvement ofvocational training quality, the connection of labour demand and supply, andthe enhancement of labour productivity.

At the session, Minister Dung also clarified a number ofissues related to the providing of vocational training to students at secondaryand high schools./.