>> Government to consider early pay rises
A Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs\' proposal to bring forward national minimum wage pay rises has worried many businesses.
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| Dang Nhu Loi, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly\'s Social Affairs Committee |
The ministry plans to submit the proposal to the government for increasing salary from October 1 this year, instead of January 1, 2012 as previously planned.
Dang Nhu Loi, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly\'s Social Affairs Committee, said, the wage rise was necessary to help improve people’s living conditions in the context of high inflation. However, this would be an added burden for enterprises, he added.
Currently, the prices of input materials have sharply increasing, raising production costs for companies, and the added wage bill may cause difficulties. Employers have threatened that the salary increase may force them to reduce their workforce or scale-back production.
According to reports from employment placement services centres, between January and May 20 this year, the number of registered unemployed labourers stood at 146,538, up 131.1% against the same period of last year.
“If the salary rise is approved, companies may dismiss a large number of labourers, resulting in a higher unemployment rate,” he said.
Additionally, if the Government fails to control the consumer price index (CPI), goods prices will continue soaring and then a new salary rise may be necessary, creating a vicious spiral, Loi said.
The official highlighted that applying regional-based pay rises to businesses is not appropriate when salaries are not based on different sectors. Different regions have different forms of companies which have different levels of operational efficiency and therefore, the same salary can not be applied.
“Management policies must be long-term. We need to have preventive measures to control inflation, so that we do not have to continuously run after it, dealing with its consequences,” he said.
The trade unions have also been blamed for being far too weak in representing worker interests.
From May 1, the minimum salary was increased by 13.69%, from the current VND730,000 (USD35.4) a month. The salary hike has benefited civil servants, workers of state-owned enterprises, together with those who work for the military and political agencies.
