Number of employed people Vietnam 2023, by industry

In 2023, over 13.8 million people worked in the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector in Vietnam, making this sector the largest employer among all industries. By comparison, the manufacturing industry employed approximately 11.9 million people, making it the second-highest employed population that year. 

Employment shift: from agriculture to non-agriculture sectors

Although agriculture was still the sector employing the most people in Vietnam, the workforce in this sector has been shrinking fast across the last decade. At the same time, other sectors that are the main driving forces behind the reformed Vietnamese economy have been benefiting from this employment trend. For instance, the manufacturing sector’s share of total employment has been growing in recent years, reaching over 21 percent in 2022, compared to under 14 percent at the beginning of the decade.

Vietnam’s export-oriented economy

Since its economic reform at the end of the 1980s, Vietnam has positioned itself as an export-oriented economy. This has come hand in hand with the mentioned employment shift, as the manufacturing sector has been responsible for the majority of the country’s most important export commodities, such as mobile phones, electronics, and textiles. On the other hand, coming from an economy previously highly dependent on agriculture, products from this sector, namely timber and aquaculture products, have also contributed to Vietnam’s export income.