As many as 225,500 people who have university and post- graduate degrees in Vietnam were unemployed in the third quarter of 2015, accounting for some 20 percent of the country's total unemployment rate.

The figure was released by Vietnam's Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) on Thursday in its workforce bulletin for the third quarter in 2015, reported local official Lao Dong (the Labor) online newspaper of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor on Friday.

The figure posted an increase of over 26,000 people compared to that of the second quarter.

The high unemployment rate among university and post-graduate degree holders in Vietnam is alarming, Lao Dong quoted Doan Mau Diep, deputy minister of MOLISA as saying at the launching of the bulletin in Vietnam's capital Hanoi.

Diep said students can consider turning to vocational training instead of going to university in order to meet the actual demand of the labor market to avoid unemployment.

Statistics of the ministry showed that only 3.5 percent of high school graduates in Vietnam joined vocational training.

In the third quarter of 2015, around 2.35 percent of the total workforce was unemployment, lower than the level of 2.42 percent in the second quarter, said the ministry.