Vietnam faces the reality of a rapidly aging population.

The General Statistics Office's national transfer account report released at the end of 2023 clearly stated that changes in the age structure of the population no longer bring advantages for economic growth and development.

In 2023, the General Statistics Office collaborated with the United Nations Population Fund to research and publish the Vietnam National Transfer Accounts Overview report. National transfer accounts is a comprehensive and systematic method used to describe the economy in detail through the income and expenditure characteristics of the population and the reallocation of economic resources between generations. This method helps countries improve their understanding of the economy according to the age structure of the population as well as how the population in different age groups affects economic growth and development.

To date, research on National Transfer Accounts has been conducted and published by more than 80 countries around the world . This method has not only proven its superiority in analyzing economic indicators through population age but also allows answering many important macro policy questions in which population is the center.

The research results show that the working population that generates income to cover their expenses and “support” the dependent population in the Vietnamese economy is actually the group of people aged 22 to 53, not the working-age population, aged 15 to 64. This is not an advantage for the Vietnamese economy when the population is in a period of rapid aging with the number of people aged 60 and over increasing sharply over the years.

Thus, from the perspective of the national transfer account, the changes in the age structure of Vietnam's population today no longer bring advantages to the country's economic growth process. In other words, the period of the first demographic dividend has ended in Vietnam.

This does not mean that we have ended the “golden population period”. In terms of pure age structure, Vietnam is still in the golden population period with the proportion of the population aged 15-64 years old in Vietnam being about 67.4%, the proportion of the population under 15 years old and aged 65 and over reaching about 32.6%. However, the advantages brought by the “golden population structure” are gradually decreasing, at the same time, the economic life cycle deficit due to population aging is increasing.

However, the demographic dividend does not happen only once. The population can have the first, second, and even third demographic dividend. In Vietnam, the period of the first demographic dividend has ended, but Vietnam can synchronously deploy socio-economic solutions to increase labor productivity and encourage an increase in the labor participation rate to achieve the second demographic dividend. In particular, if the socio-economic development strategies and solutions are well implemented in accordance with the spirit of Decision No. 1305/QD-TTg dated November 8, 2023 of the Prime Minister , Vietnam will have an average labor productivity growth rate of 6.5%/year in the 2023-2030 period, 1.7 percentage points higher than the increase in 2022. This productivity growth will help Vietnam achieve the second demographic dividend by the 2040s.

In addition, although Vietnam no longer has an advantage in age structure, our country is still in the "golden population structure period" with an abundant young labor force. This period is forecasted to last at least 10 more years. Therefore, policies to take advantage of the "golden population structure period", especially policies to create jobs and satisfactory jobs for workers, still have value and need to continue to be implemented well to ensure economic efficiency and social stability.

In addition, it is necessary to actively implement solutions to increase labor productivity in combination with policies to encourage increased labor participation rates, especially the labor participation rate of the elderly, contributing to creating more income, helping to reduce the "economic life cycle deficit" to take advantage of the second demographic dividend for sustainable growth and development.

Analyzing more specifically the positive and negative aspects of the Vietnamese labor market in 2023, the General Statistics Office stated that, on the positive side, the labor force aged 15 and over in 2023, the labor force aged 15 and over reached 52.4 million people, 0.7 million more than the previous year. The number of employed workers aged 15 and over in 2023 reached 51.3 million people, an increase of 683,000 people (equivalent to an increase of 1.35%) compared to 2022. The number of employed workers increased in both urban and rural areas as well as in both men and women. The rate of trained workers with degrees and certificates in 2023 was 27.0%, an increase compared to the previous year. The average monthly income of workers is 7.1 million VND, an increase of 6.9%, equivalent to an increase of 459 thousand VND compared to 2022. Compared to the previous year, the unemployment and underemployment situation has improved.

However, the General Statistics Office also frankly acknowledged a number of limitations, including: the quality of labor supply still has many shortcomings and limitations, failing to meet the labor demand of a modern, flexible, sustainable and integrated labor market (about 38 million workers have not received primary training or higher). The number of working workers tends to increase, but the labor market has not improved in terms of labor quality when the number of informal workers doing precarious and unstable jobs still accounts for a large proportion, about three-fifths of the total number of employed workers in the country. Comparing the years from 2020 to present (except for 2021 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic), the shift in industry structure between the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector and the remaining two sectors this year seems to have slowed down. If in 2020 and 2022, the proportion of labor in the agricultural sector decreased by 1.0 percentage point and 1.6 percentage points respectively and increased correspondingly in the remaining two sectors, then by 2023, the proportion of labor in the agricultural, forestry and fishery sectors decreased more slowly, only decreasing by 0.6 percentage points. The youth unemployment rate is still high (7.63% in 2023). The number of underutilized laborers is 2.3 million people. The rate of underutilized laborers in 2023 is 4.3%./.

Source link