When his roommates turn the lights off to go to bed at 10 p.m., Hoang Minh is just starting his eight-hour shift at work. Sitting with a laptop on his bunk bed, the 21-year-old enters information about overseas orders his company has received into the system. "This job just needs hands and eyes," he says. Because of the Covid-19 outbreak, Minh was allowed to work from his room in Hanoi's Cau Giay District. But within two days the company required him to return to office since his output had been lower than normal. His salary has remained at VND6 million ($260) a month since he began working here since 2019. Hoang Minh doing his data entry work in his room in Hanoi's Cau Giay District. Photo courtesy of Minh. After dropping out of college, the young man from central Vietnam had been dreaming of working in the technology field, a job he perceived as "computer-related." But instead he ended up with a data entry job. After two months of working through the night and going home to sleep in the morning, he quit just after the 2020 Lunar New Year ( Tet ) just as Covid-19 first appeared in Vietnam. He began to apply for all sorts of jobs. However, the pandemic was causing a huge number of layoffs. According to the General Statistics Office, the employment rate in the first quarter of 2020 was the lowest in 10 years. Minh got a job as a bank credit officer, who had to persuade individuals and businesses to borrow. But there was no salary and instead employees got paid based on performance. This time he quit after just one month. He then worked as a real estate agent and quit again when he could not find a single client in three months. During that time he had to borrow money just to eat. Around this time a former colleague and friend also wanted to quit his data entry job, and Minh texted him saying: "Don't be foolish to quit your job at this critical time. I really regret my action now." Luckily for him, his old company again …
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