1. World and domestic economic context
The picture of the global economy has experienced a tumultuous year with "dark colors" as the dominant color due to the severe impact of the Covid-19 epidemic. In December 2020, a vaccine against the acute respiratory infection Covid-19 was released to help control the pandemic and restore economic activity. The world economy has shown significant signs of recovery.
In its Global Economic Outlook for 2021, the World Bank (WB) forecasts that the world economic growth will reach 4% and the growth of Vietnam, one of the few countries with positive growth in 2018. 2020, is expected to reach 6.8%.
In the field of labor and employment, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said that the labor market has begun to show signs of recovery after unprecedented disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. in 2020. However, the negative impact of the pandemic is still ongoing. The organization's Covid-19 Impact Report provides the latest figures showing that global working hours in 2020 have decreased by 8.8% compared to Q4 2019. This decline includes the number of working hours. reduced working hours for those still employed and those who lost their jobs. Notably, about 71% of people who lost their jobs (equivalent to 81 million people) decided to leave the labor market instead of finding another job and becoming unemployed. These enormous losses resulted in an 8.3% drop in global labor income, equivalent to US$3.7 trillion or 4.4% of global gross domestic product.
Domestically, the outbreak of Covid-19 in some localities on the days leading up to the Lunar New Year this year has affected the labor situation and employment of the whole country and affected the momentum of job restoration and improvement. workers' income in the first quarter. Labor and employment survey results in the first quarter of 2021 recorded a decrease in the number of labor market participants compared to the previous quarter and the same period last year. The proportion of employees with informal jobs and underemployed workers both increased compared to the previous quarter and the same period last year. The income of workers increased but the growth rate was much lower than the same period before the epidemic.
2. Impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on the employment and employment situation
Currently, the whole country still has 9.1 million people aged 15 and over who are negatively affected by the Covid-19 epidemic
Although economic recovery efforts coupled with epidemic prevention and control have somewhat improved the grayscale of the domestic labor and employment situation, in the first quarter of 2021, the country still has 9.1 million people. People aged 15 and over are negatively affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, in which men account for 51.0% and the number of people aged 25 to 54 accounts for nearly two-thirds.
Out of a total of 9.1 million people who were negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, 540 thousand people lost their jobs, 2.8 million people had to temporarily stop/suspend production and business; 3.1 million people said they had their hours cut or forced to take time off, and 6.5 million workers reported a reduction in income.
Urban workers are more affected than rural areas with 15.6% of urban workers still affected, while this figure is 10.4% in rural areas.
The group of unemployed workers is most affected when 36.3% of them are still negatively affected, followed by employed workers (15.5%), only 4.3% of employees. Economic inactivity is also negatively impacted by this pandemic.
In terms of 3 regions, the area least affected by the pandemic is the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector with 7.5% of workers reporting being negatively affected by the pandemic. In second place is the industry and construction sector with 16.5% of employees affected. Labor in the service sector was the hardest hit, accounting for 20.4%.
The labor force in the first quarter of 2021 decreased compared to the previous quarter and the same period last year. The upward trend in the number of employees of the following year compared to the same period in previous years is no longer obvious
The labor force aged 15 and over in the first quarter of 2021 was 51.0 million people, a decrease of 1.1 million people compared to the previous quarter and a decrease of 180.9 thousand people compared to the same period last year. Compared to the previous quarter, the decline of the labor force is a trend that is often observed in many years including the years before the pandemic due to the "January is a fun month" mentality of many workers after the pandemic. Lunar New Year holiday. However, the resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic just before the Lunar New Year has changed the usual uptrend compared to the same period in previous years. Normally, according to the population growth momentum, the following year's labor force always increases compared to the same period last year. However, the labor force in the first quarter of 2021 was nearly 200,000 people lower than the same period last year and about 600,000 people lower than the same period when there was no epidemic (in 2019).
The third outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has weakened the labor market's recovery momentum achieved in the last two quarters of 2020 and caused many workers to lose their jobs.