Normally, about a few weeks before the Tet holiday, many shops along such specialised shopping streets in Da Nang as Phan Chau Trinh, Hung Vuong, Nguyen Van Linh and Le Duan, race to seek seasonal employees in a bid to provide better services for their customers. Jobs in this segment include security, delivery, sales, cashiers, and product packaging.

Home delivery services have been very attractive to young people due to low entry thresholds and comparably good pay

However, hiring is shaping up differently from previous years. This year’s seasonal employment postings are much less than last year’s. The number of employers searching for seasonal workers has significantly fallen.

Explaining the reason for the low demand for seasonal employees before this year’s Tet Festival, Ms Huynh Bao Tram, the owner of a silk shop on Phan Chau Trinh Street, said most of businesses have seen sales unprecedented decline due to the impact of Covid-19.  

She added, in previous years, her shop recruited 2 seasonal workers to work from New Year until Lunar New Year’s Eve. However, sales of silk products this year were sluggish compared with the same period last year, so she and her husband could do all the work by themselves without seasonal workers.

Ms Le Thi Ha, hailing from Quang Nam Province’s Dai Loc District, has lived in Da Nang for around 10 years. She often sells vegetables in a market in Son Tra District, whilst her husband is a taxi driver. In the last months of the year, she usually cleans the house for some acquaintances in a bid to earn extra money for Tet.

However, this year’s situation completely changes because the pandemic causes demand for cleaning services to fall. Due to pandemic-posed financial difficulties, many families plan to clean their houses by themselves instead of using home cleaning services.

In a similar vein, market stall holders at such major traditional markets as Con, Han and Dong Da are witnessing a sharp decrease in the shopping demand for Tet.

Contrary to the relatively quiet "traditional" seasonal labour market, this year’s the labour market for online firms is somewhat more active.

With people afraid to visit public places like supermarkets because of COVID-19, the e-commerce market is buzzing with activity ahead of the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, which falls on February 12, resulting in the high demand for more employment in Tet.

Last year, the coronavirus pandemic pushed many shoppers to make their purchases online as many physical retail outlets across the world were either closed due to lockdown measures or limited capacities to maintain social distancing.

Tran Trong Nguyen, former student of the Da Nang University of Economics, is among young people running online businesses successfully. He said Covid-19 has pushed the huge boom in online sales and increase in convenience store sales.

Many young people in Da Nang, especially students, have recently grasped this opportunity to boost online sales in order to earn extra money for Tet shopping or to pay their next semester tuition fees.

In particular, a group of students from Phuong Dong Junior College, namely Truong Van Binh, Le Thi Thuy Linh and Bui Tan Anh, have been active involved in selling specialties of Central Highlands online. Such part-time jobs are great opportunities for students to develop their sales skills as well as earn some money to spend on daily expense.

By THANH VAN - Translated by M.D