The Hung Loi 2 apartment complex in Binh Duong Province has over 1,700 rooms. At peak times, as many as 5,000 people live here. However, since July, rooms have been vacated as migrant factory workers have returned home after losing their jobs amid the slow economy's reduced production orders.
There are now only around 1,300 people left at Hung Loi 2, most of them unemployed workers from out of town without enough money to get back home. The landlord is currently charging reduced rents of VND300,000 ($12.79) per room.
By the end of 2022, around 28,000 workers had lost their jobs in Ho Chi Minh City-adjacent Binh Duong, and an additional 240,000 people had seen their hours reduced.
The locality has recorded the highest number of job losses and the largest reduction of working hours in all of southeastern Vietnam, according to official government statistics. Many of the workers were laid off in the wood, textile and leather industries, which have seen orders drop thanks to decreasing global demand.
Thi Binh, 60, from the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang, has had to sell roasted bananas for the past few months after being rendered jobless. Both she and her husband used to work for the Thong Nhat wood company, but they've been laid off work for over two months now. Without enough money to return to their hometown this Tet, they have to stay back and wait until they can return to work.
Ly Thi Huong (in front), along with her neighbors, salvages recyclables and picks wild water hyacinths to earn a living.
Huong, who's from the Mekong Delta province of An Giang along the Cambodian border, came to Binh Duong to take care of her grandchildren. Both her daughter and her daughter's husband lost their jobs in December, and while they've been looking for work, Huong has been out collecting scraps and plants for a few dozen-thousand Vietnamese dong a day (VND1,000 = 4.3 U.S. cents).
Like Huong, Ly Thi Hen (in checkered clothing) from An Giang, also went to Binh Duong to take care of her grandchildren a couple of years ago. But ever since her children lost their jobs, she has also taken up scrap collecting to make a living.
"My children have been jobless for months. They can't even take care of themselves, how will they support me?" she said.
Le Van Thuan, 38, from the southern province of Dong Thap, asked his relatives to send him nets for fishing. Thuan was forced by his wood factory to take his Tet holiday two months early, without any compensation.
Like many families in the neighborhood, Soc Ni and Mo Se, also from An Giang, have to collect wild vegetables every day to sustain themselves. They have four children, all workers, but some have quit to look for other work due to underemployment.
"We harvest wild vegetables and manage to earn VND60,000-70,000 a day," Ni Said. "Today, security guards chased us off private property, so we returned home early."
Having just had a baby, Nguyen Van Ut, 30, and his wife from the southernmost province of Ca Mau decided to stay back in Binh Duong as Tet approaches.
"My wife has just given birth, so she doesn't go to work," said Ut. "Our family's income is at VND4-5 million a month. That's not even enough money to feed the baby, let alone return to our hometown."
In late afternoon, as she sits in front of the family store, 39-year-old Nguyen Thi Thu (L) from the Mekong Delta Province of Tien Giang, said she just had VND100 million taken from her by debt collectors. Her husband was a textile worker but was let go two months earlier. Their 17-year-old child is also jobless.
In the past, Thu worked at a wood company factory. She spent her savings to open a convenience store in the workers' neighborhood.
"Many workers buy goods and borrow money, and then they lose their jobs and can't pay me back," Thu said. "I can't even ask them to pay, because I know everyone is in the same situation. I just hope that they get a job soon to they can pay back their debts."
Thu also raises ducks in the neighborhood to sustain herself.
"I used to be the most well-off person in this area," she said. "Now I'm at the bottom."
Having received VND5 million as their last month's salary, Son Ut and Ne Ang Soc Khone, workers at a wood factory in Tan Uyen, paid their rent and packed up their motorbike to return home to Soc Trang and celebrate Tet with their children.
"The company let us take a month off for the Tet holiday. After receiving the money, we hopped on the motorbike and returned home immediately," said Son. "Every day we stay here, we would lose a bit more money."
Son said they had VND3.5 million left after paying rent for December.
According to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, at the end of December, some 530 businesses in Vietnam had reported order drops this year, mostly in southern regions.
Over 637,000 people either lost their jobs or saw their working hours reduced in total. Experts expect that by the end of the first quarter of 2023, the textile, leather, wood and mechanical industries will still be in decline due to their reliance on export markets.
