Keep Farm Jobs, Experts Tell Vietnam

Communist Vietnam needs to keep its rural workers down on the farm to tackle a severe unemployment problem as it moves rapidly toward a market economy, international experts say.

Stabilizing unemployment at its current level of 6% requires an economic growth rate of more than 10%, the International Labor Organization said in a report released last week. Vietnam recorded growth of 8.8% in gross domestic product last year.

The ILO gave Vietnam good marks for coping with the strain of change under reforms launched in 1986.

“Of all the previous command economies, Vietnam has gone the furthest in reforming its economy structures,” the report says.

But the Hanoi government faces a “daunting” task of tackling dislocation as a result of the reforms, which have cut the size of the state work force and closed some state industries.

In the cities, unemployment reached 25%, and some estimates put the rate in northern Vietnam at more than 33%, the ILO said, recommending that greater attention be paid to the employment potential of the agricultural sector.