This paper examines the impacts of the current economic slowdown on employment generation and
unemployment in Vietnam. The study reports that as the country has experienced a slowdown,
there would be an employment shortfall of around half million jobs in 2009. And if the growth
prospect of 2010 is not improved compared to that of 2009, Vietnam would encounter a shortfall of
more than one million jobs in 2010. As a consequence, our projected unemployment rates are
higher than that of 2008 by nearly one and a half percentage point in 2009 and two percentage
points in 2010. The findings are relatively robust under different assumptions of the economic
growth. The study provides a somewhat different outlook from what has been suggested by the
media – which has tended to highlight jobs losses taking place in certain parts of the country. The
results of our analysis suggest that government efforts to stave off the effects of the crisis should
have been focused more strongly on employment and job creation.