This year was considered particularly tough for jobseekers in Vietnam, especially those who worked at factories and industrial parks, as a wave of lay-offs and pay cuts swept the country.

Many of those impacted by the lay-offs have had no choice but to return to their hometowns, though some have opted to remain in big cities, struggling to make ends meet due to losing much of their incomes.

T.H., a resident of District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City, first moved to the city 13 years ago to work in a factory but recently switched jobs to work as a driver for an express forwarding company.

But with a monthly salary of just VND4.5 million (US$183), H. feels he has been priced out of the city and plans to quit his job and return to his hometown with his wife.

Though his wife is currently employed by a company located in an export processing zone, rumors that a round of dismissals will soon affect the company have played heavily into her decision to leave.

Between their low salaries and the high cost of city living, the couple has decided to cut their losses and return to the countryside with their two children.

Van Vien, a former employee at the Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone in District 7, also recently left his job following news that the company had lost business throughout the year, would no longer be offering overtime hours, and would cut his salary by VND3 million ($122) per month.

But rather than return to his hometown, Vien opted to begin driving for a ride-hailing app where he earns about VND200,000 ($8.16) per day, just enough to make ends meet.

The economic downturn has not only taken a toll on factory workers but also on household business owners.

A home-based garment facility owned by Duc Hoa in Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City has had to fire many of its 30 employees since the beginning of the year in order to match the decline in orders.

At an unemployment insurance agency in the city, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hue, a 30-year-old resident from Ho Chi Minh City’s outlying district of Hoc Mon, revealed that she just quit her job at a footwear company where she had worked for seven years due to salary cuts of VND3-4 million ($122-163) per month per employee.

Similarly, Sang, 23, was waiting for his turn to receive unemployment benefits at the agency after quitting his job as an electrician following his company’s downturn in business.

A report recently released by Navigos Research, a leading provider of executive search services in Vietnam, showed that some 82 percent of businesses operating in various fields like transport, forwarding, supply chains, ecommerce, and fin-tech in the country have been considerably affected by the economic downturn.

The construction and IT sectors witnessed the sharpest fall in recruitment demand, with the IT sector this year recording a year-on-year decline of over 32 percent.

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