Nearly 72,300 Vietnamese labourers sent abroad in H1. (Photo:VNA)

Hanoi – Vietnam sent nearly 72,300 labourers abroad in the first half of 2023, accounting for 65.72 per cent of the whole year plan, and 1.55 times higher than the same period last year.

According to the Department of Overseas Labour under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Japan was the largest market receiving 34,508 Vietnamese labourers in the period, followed by Taiwan (China) with 31,538, the Republic of Korea (1,608), and China (902).

In June alone, as many as 12,649 labourers were sent abroad, mostly to Japan and Taiwan.

The same month, Vietnamese Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung and the RoK’s Minister of Employment and Labour Lee Jung Sik signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on sending and receiving Vietnamese labourers to work in the RoK within the Employment Permit System (EPS) programme.

For Vietnamese guest workers, the RoK is a high-income and close-to-culture market, so it attracts many workers from the Southeast Asian nation. The average income of workers in the RoK ranges from 1,500 - 2,000 USD per month. The EPS programme brings many high-income jobs to Vietnamese workers as well as contributes to the RoK’s development.

For 2023, the country set a target to send 110,000 workers abroad.