The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has set targets for 2010, including creating 1.6 million jobs, at a two-day conference in Hanoi.
The ministry said it will also strive to provide vocational training for nearly 1.75 million people, raise the rate of trained workers by 30 percent, and reduce urban unemployment to less than 4.7 percent.
The targets also include an effort to reduce the nationwide poverty rate to below 9.5 percent.
In his speech, the Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Dam Huu Dac, pointed out some weaknesses in the ministry’s activities such as untimely and inconsistent provision of legal guidance, slow implementation of national target programmes, and failure to associate vocational training for farmers with shifts in production and labour structures in rural areas.
Addressing the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung praised the ministry for its efforts and stressed that its work is difficult but of great humane nature.
He told the conference that in the coming time, the labour, invalids and social affairs sector should effectively advise the government on such fields as jobs, vocational training, poverty reduction, and child care.
In 2009, Vietnam created jobs for more than 1.5 million people, including over 73,000 guest workers. The nation’s poverty rate decreased to just 11.3 percent.
