Society

Mr. Nguyen Trung Tien, Deputy General Director of the General Statistics Office (GSO), told a January 6 press conference on labor and employment in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the year as a whole that over 1.8 million jobs were created in the final quarter thanks to flexible adaptation to pandemic prevention and control measures to restore the economy. Incomes in industry and construction; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; and services increased compared to the third quarter.

The Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) has sent a document to the Prime Minister requesting he direct the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to allow credit institutions designated by the State to provide preferential loans to purchase social housing.

The General Department of State Reserve held a conference to review work in 2021 and deploy tasks for 2022 on December 29. The national reserve sector issued reserve items worth over VND3.4 trillion ($149 million) this year to support localities facing difficulties from the pandemic and the consequences of flooding.

The monthly income of Vietnam’s poorest group of workers reached VND1.13 million ($49.36) in 2020, an increase of VND151,000 ($6.56) compared to 2019. Meanwhile, the earnings of the group of “high income” workers stood at VND8 million ($350), down VND1.1 million ($48.07) compared to 2019, due to the heavy impact of the pandemic.

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) has introduced a program targeting an unemployment rate in urban areas of below 4 per cent and in rural areas of below 2 per cent. Among the six groups of tasks within the program are solutions to support the cost of attracting employees back to work. In particular, the Ministry will also propose amending and supplementing the Law on Employment, the Law on Occupational Safety and Hygiene, the Law on Social Insurance, and the Law on Vocational Education.

The Ministry of Health has allocated 300,000 doses of Molnupiravir to localities implementing the Program on the Controlled Use of Molnupiravir for mild cases of Covid-19 in the community.