Monday, October 13, 2008

Minimum wage to increase by VND110-200,000/month

The minimum wage of labourers working in domestic owned and foreign invested enterprises will increase by VND110-200,000/month as of January 1, 2009 under the newly promulgated Government decrees.


The minimum wage of labourers working in domestic owned and foreign invested enterprises will increase by VND110-200,000/month as of January 1, 2009
The minimum wage increase was officially announced today afternoon at the press conference held by the National Committee on Labour Relations.

Pham Minh Huan, Director of the Salary and Wage Department under the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), said that the Government on October 10 promulgated two decrees on the issue.

Four different minimum wage levels have been stipulated for four different zones.

Zone 1, which includes HCM City and Hanoi (including Ha Dong City of the former Ha Tay province), will see the highest increases in the minimum wage. The new minimum wage level for domestic owned enterprises will be VND800,000/month ($50), while the level for foreign invested enterprises will be VND1.2mil/month ($75).

Zone 2, which includes a number of new districts of Hanoi (Thuong Tin, Hoai Duc, Dan Phuong, Thach That, Quoc Oai and Son Tay City); districts of HCM City, the districts in Can Tho City (Ninh Kieu, Binh Thuy); Ha Long City (in the northern province of Quang Ninh); Thu Dau Mot town and districts (Thuan An, Di An, Ben Cat, Tan Uyen) in the southern province of Binh Duong, will have the minimum wage of VND740,000/month ($46.25) for the labourers in domestic owned enterprises, and VND1,080,000/month ($67.5) for foreign invested enterprises.

Zone 3, which includes the remaining districts of Hanoi; Bac Ninh City; Tu Son town; districts (Que Vo, Tien Du, Yen Phong) in Bac Ninh Province; Bac Giang City; districts (Viet Yen, Yen Dung), Bao Loc Town and Da Lat City in Lam Dong Province; Nha Trang City and Cam Ranh Town in Khanh Hoa province; Trang Bang district in Tay Ninh province, will have the minimum wage levels of VND690,000/month ($43.12) and VND950,000/month ($59.37), respectively.

Zone 4, which includes the remaining areas, will have the minimum wages of VND650,000 ($40.62) and VND920,000/month ($57.5), respectively.

The above said minimum wage levels should be considered as the pay to the labourers, who do the simplest works in the normal working conditions at enterprises.

The trained workers must be paid with at least 7% higher than the minimum wage stipulated for the zone.

Huan from MOLISA admitted that the said increases are not enough to offset the price increases in recent inflation. However, he said that the increases prove to be reasonable in the current conditions, when enterprises are facing a lot of difficulties, and the Government is prioritising the task of fighting inflation.

With the minimum wage adjustment, the minimum wage of labourers will increase by VND110-180,000/month for domestic owned enterprises, and VND120-200,000/month for foreign invested enterprises.

The minimum wage increases are believed not to cause big impacts on enterprises’ total expenses. In fact, a lot of enterprises already pay their workers higher than the stipulated minimum levels.

Do Minh

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