Illustrative image (Photo:AFP/VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The third COVID-19 resurgence has weakened the labour market recovery momentum gained in the second half of 2020 and forced many labourers, particularly women, to shift to informal employment, according to the latest report by the General Statistics Office (GSO).
A survey by the GSO reveals that though there was a fall in employment in the first quarter of 2021, the number of working females rose against the same period last year.
The increase, however, was largely due to a higher number of women working in the informal sector, the GSO said, adding that the growth of females in informal sector was higher than that of males.
It is probably because women are more easy-going and do not have many choices of work compared to men, said Pham Hoai Nam, director of the GSO’s Population and Labour Statistics Department.
They had to take less stable jobs as long as they provide income for them, he added.
In the first three months of this year, the number of informal workers totalled 20.7 million, down 251,700 from the previous quarter and up 525,400 year-on-year.
Workers in informal economy accounted for 57.1 percent of the total workforce, an increase of 1.1 percentage point quarter-on-quarter and 1.8 percentage point year-on-year. The rate rose in rural areas (2.1 percentage point quarter-on-quarter and 2.6 percentage point year-on-year), and among women (1.8 percentage point quarter-on-quarter and 2.5 percentage point year-on-year)./.
VNA
