The number of jobless people in Vietnam reached more than one million at the end of last year, according to the latest statistics.

The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said in a report on Friday that the unemployed population topped one million in the last quarter of 2015.

In the quarter, the number of employed people reached 53.5 million out of 54.59 million people aged 15 or more, the ministry elaborated in its labor market update.

The report said that 48 percent of the unemployed live in the city, of which young adults make up 12 percent.

Unemployed young adults from 15 to 24 years of age represent more than half of the jobless population, 53 percent, said Doan Mau Diep, Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs.

Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, former director of the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs, said that the unemployment rate in working age people decreased by 0.17 percentage points to 2.18 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, compared to the preceding quarter.

In Vietnam, the working age is from 15 to 60 for men and 15 to 55 for women.

However, it is a slight increase in comparison with the same quarter in 2014, Huong noted.

The unemployment rate of those graduating from junior college and those holding a university degree or higher qualifications saw a slight drop while there were signs of a rise in such a rate for people with a vocational training degree, she added.

The unemployment rate among those in the 15-24 age group was the highest during the recorded period, at 7.21 percent, which is three-fold the overall ratio, Huong said.

In that same age group, the rates were 20 percent for Associate’s degree holders and nearly 21 percent for university graduates, according to the statistics.

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