The minister said that to date, Vietnam has 51.9 million labourers, 2.8 million higher than the figure recorded at the same time last year, while the rate of new labourers joining the labour market is 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 been provided as assistance to 56 million pandemic-affected labourers and more than 730,000 employers.
The policies have greatly contributed to the economic recovery and development, he said, citing statistics from the Statistics Office as showing that the average monthly income of labourers in the third quarter of this 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 target programme on sustainable poverty reduction, with the majority of criteria reached.
According to the minister, improvement has also been seen in vocational training activities in both scale and quality.
However, he pointed to a number of challenges in ensuring social welfare and poverty reduction. Currently, 2.4 million households are living 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 be completed but at a lowest level in many years.
Dung said that in the future, the ministry will continue to give advice to the Politburo and the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat to issue a directive on the strengthening of the Party leadership to vocational training activities and the building of a flexible, modern, sustainable and developed labour market.
It will advise the Government to issue a resolution on labour market development, which focuses on the renovation and improvement of vocational training quality, the connection of labour demand and supply, and the enhancement of labour productivity.
At the session, Minister Dung also clarified a number of issues related to the providing of vocational training to students at secondary and high schools.
