Since last October, Pham Manh Hung has been struggling to feed his five-member family. Hung has been forced into a reduction of working hours, while his wife last worked for an apparel company in Hanoi almost a year ago. For most of 2022, all 1,500 workers at Hung’s company in Hanoi’s Quang Minh Industrial Park (IP), producing furniture products exported to Europe and Japan, operated at full speed with many export orders coming from foreign partners. Prolonged economic difficulties will inevitably mean that some people will be squeezed out of work, photo Le Toan “However, over the past seven months, the company has landed only several orders. So its leadership has been seeking more markets for its products in order to create employment and retain workers,” Hung said. “They don’t want to let go of workers and instead reduce the working hours by two hours a day.” Meanwhile, his wife, Nguyen Thi Mo, had been working for a Japanese firm in the capital’s Thang Long IP … [Read more...] about Nation braced for dim job prospects