~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Vietnam aims to send 80,000 workers abroad in 2007

HANOI - - Vietnam plans to send more than 80,000 workers abroad in 2007 as part of a labour-export programme to keep unemployment down, state media reported Tuesday. Last year, the fast-growing country sent about 78,000 workers to mostly Asian countries as "guest workers," according to the state-run Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper.

Malaysia is the top destination for Vietnamese workers with nearly 38,000 sent there last year alone to work in factories or as domestic help. Taiwan received 14,000 Vietnamese and South Korea 11,000 Vietnamese workers last year, the newspaper reported. With 58 per cent of the population under 30, Vietnam has an estimated 1.2 million new workers entering the labour force each year.

Even with its high annual economic growth rate of 8 per cent over the past five years, Vietnam has trouble creating enough jobs to handle the large numbers, so the communist-run government has a policy of sending workers abroad. Vietnam's official unemployment rate still remains low at just more than 5 per cent nationally although the figure is believed to be higher in rural areas.

Deutsche Presse Agentur - January 2, 2007