- Vietnam’s National Business Registration data shows that the number of firms which temporarily suspended operations surged by 39% in 8M 2020 YoY, while the number of newly registered companies decreased by 2% YoY. The unemployment rate climbed to a multi-year high of 2.51% while the labor force participation rate fell to 72.3% in Q2 2020 from 76.5% in Q4 2019. The total number of people employed dropped by 3.1m or 5.6% in H1 2020 (agriculture down 1.1m or 6.0%, industry & construction down.