Number of unemployment benefit applicants rises 11% in HCMC

The average unemployment cash support was VND5.5 million (US$224), and the average time an applicant received this sum was six months, said Nguyen Van Hanh, director of the HCMC Employment Service Center.

Many companies have laid off staff due to shortage of orders or scaling down business.

The layoff wave has been increasing non-stop since around April and will likely continue in the remaining months, said Le Thi Huynh Mai, director of the city’s Department of Planning and Investment.

She added that this trend will lay a burden on the city’s social security and hamper its efforts to achieve economic targets.

The number of workers in HCMC dropped 2.5% year-on-year in the first 10 months of the year, with major declines of 17% in leather production, 12% in metal and mineral mining and 10% in water treatment.

Over half of the laid-off people (52%) have no degrees, and 36% of them have a university degree, according to the HCMC Employment Service Center. Most of them are aged 25-40.

Since the beginning of the year the center has launched over 130 job fairs to connect businesses with jobseekers.

It said that businesses will need 75,000 new employees in the last quarter.