Vietnam scrutinizes why so many women are being fired from industrial zones

By Hoang Thuy September 13, 2017 | 02:47 am PT

Female workers at a footwear factory in Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham

Women aged over 35 accounted for 80 percent of factory workers who were fired or quit last year.

Vietnam’s government is looking into unusually high rates of layoffs and resignations among female workers at the country's industrial zones, with gender discrimination the prime suspect, officials said at a meeting on Wednesday.

A survey conducted by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor found that of the 500 factory workers who were fired or quit last year, more than 80 percent were women over 35 years old.

Many of them left their jobs due to harsh conditions, officials said, citing the survey that was released earlier this year.

“It’s an alarming matter,” labor minister Dao Ngoc Dung said at the meeting.

He said the government has ordered labor and social agencies to delve deeper and intervene where necessary to protect women’s rights.

Legislators at the meeting said that female unemployment has become a widespread problem in Vietnam, affecting the lives of millions of families.

According to the General Statistics Office, women accounted for 72 percent of the 1.2 million unemployed people in 2016.

Vietnam is traditionally a patriarchal society, but has been making efforts to address gender equality in recent years.

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