According to the report on the status and trends of the implementation of unemployment insurance policies associated with job creation issued by the Hanoi Employment Service Center, the Hanoi job market currently has many situations in the vulnerable group.
If informal labor is a concept, then vulnerability (including self-employment and family labor) is the core layer, reflecting the level of autonomy but also full of risks.
According to a survey by the Hanoi Employment Service Center, in 2021, 2023 and 2024, the rate of vulnerability will remain very high and stable, about 1/3 of the total workforce. The figure of 1.44 people with vulnerable jobs, accounting for 35.1% of the labor market in 2024, shows the huge scale of the working class who are "self-reliant". They are small shop owners, street vendors, self- Propagated farmers, freelancers...
This subject can be both a director and an employee of himself, having to shoulder 100% of the risks of the market without any protection mechanism. The high stability of this group shows that, despite economic growth, a large number of people still rely on small-scale, autonomous economic models to make a living.
The survey of the Hanoi Employment Service Center also shows that in the period of 2021-2024, "poor workers" tend to decrease slowly but sustainably. In general, the trend of this index is positive. The "poor employment rate" has gradually decreased from 11.8% (in 2021) to 9.6% (in 2024).
This is a remarkable result, showing that efforts to improve wages, improve productivity and social security policies have had certain impacts, helping a number of workers escape poverty while still working.
However, the rate of decline is still slow and with a scale of nearly 400,000 people, it is still a painful number, showing that the quality of a large number of workers (mainly in the informal and agricultural sector) is still very low.
A noteworthy point during this period is the significant gap in gender in this labor group. Throughout the entire period of 2021 - 2024, the rate of female "poor workers" is always twice as high as that of male workers. Specifically, in 2024, this ratio will be 13.3% for women, while for men it will be only 6%.
The inequality that female workers are facing is becoming increasingly clear. Female workers tend to focus more on jobs in the informal sector with the lowest and most unstable incomes, such as helping families, selling street products, sub-workers in family businesses and simple processing jobs.
In addition, the burden of taking care of families and children (unpaid work) often falls on women's shoulders, giving them less time and opportunities to participate in formal, full-time work, with higher and more stable income.
This difference shows that, to solve the problem of poor employment, policies do not only need to focus on creating jobs in general, but must have gender-based policies, aiming at improving capacity, opportunities and improving working conditions for female workers, especially in rural and informal areas, Hanoi Employment Service Center commented.
