More than 800 firms stop operating or scale down due to COVID-19

More than 800 businesses and 8,700 employees have been affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The ministry has just released a report on the impact of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus first reported in Wuhan, China.

Accordingly, a survey of 30 provinces and cities showed that 322 out of 181,597 enterprises have suspended operations, while 553 enterprises reducedor narrowed their production and business scale.

Twenty-two provinces and cities reported that 8,773 workers have been affected and 1,027 made unemployed.

In the report of 63 localities, of the 33,775 Chinese workers employed in the localities under work permits, 26,388 went back to China to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and most of them have not returned to Vietnam due to the epidemic.

As of 4pm on February 10, 15,018 Chinese workers were working in Vietnam, including 7,388 workers who stayed in Vietnam during the Lunar New Year holiday and 7,630 Chinese workers returned after the holiday.

Data on the number of Vietnamese workers working abroad under contracts showed that Vietnam currently has 524,153 employees working in mainland China and other countries and territorieswhere COVID-19 cases have been confirmed, including Taiwan, Macau, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, UAE and the Philippines.

No Vietnamese workers working abroad have caught COVID-19 so far.

The survey by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs also stated that there have been no major changes in labour and employment nationwide to date.

Most businesses, especially large enterprises, are still stable with normal operation. There is not yet a risk of a labour shortage, said the ministry.

(Source: VNA)