VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of businesses have decided that their staff would start the Lunar New Year holiday two weeks before Tet, because they don’t think that the operation on the last days of the Year of Dragon would help bring more revenue.

An English center in Binh Thanh district in HCM City has released a notice that the center would start the Tet holiday from January 29, 2013, or the 18th day of December of the lunar year, to the end of February 17.

In previous years, the English center opened until the 24th or 25th of December of the lunar year. However, since there have been too few learners, and the number of newly registered students is not high enough to open a new class, the center has decided that its staff would be better off to go on holiday now.

Nga, an officer of the center, said since the revenue of the center has decreased sharply, while the premises rent has increased significantly, the officers here have to accept the 10 percent decrease in salaries. Meanwhile, the Tet bonuses are 20 percent lower than the previous year’s.

“There’s nothing to do now at the center, therefore, we have been told to start the Tet holiday soon,” Nga said.

However, Nga does not feel happy about the holiday, saying that she would rather go to work now. “Since we have Tet holiday soon, we would have less days’ leave after Tet,” she complained.

Like Nga, Trong feels sad though he would return to Dak Lak to celebrate Tet with his family in some days. Trong said his company never before allowed its staff to leave for Tet holiday so early. Workers have been informed that they would leave from the 20th of December of lunar year, but none of them feels happy.

The company has got only several contracts over the last few months. The workers have nearly fulfilled the last order; therefore, they would have no work to do in some more days. It’s still unclear about the jobs after Tet, because no more contracts have been signed.

Last week, the company’s board of directors had a meeting with all the workers, where they informed that they would have to lay off some workers to cut down expenses.

“I was one of the 20 workers to be laid off in January,” Trong said.

Trong wishes he could still take some works before leaving for Tet holiday. However, it’s impossible to find a new job now, just some days before Tet. “I still don’t know what I would live on. I have no savings, because I cannot get the 13th month salary this year,” he complained.

Phuong, who works for a garment workshop in Tan Phu district, also has to leave for holiday soon. In previous years, Phuong always had to work extra hours to fulfill the contracts prior to the Tet holiday.

However, things are quite different this year. Phuong and other workers stopped tailoring some months ago and they have been working as salesmen since then. As the products remain unsold, the boss decided not to make new products to focus on boosting sales.

Nguyen Tan Dinh, Deputy Head of the HCM City Management Board of Industrial Zone and Export Processing Zone, said in previous years, the workers were encouraged to work overtime to get extra income. However, they now can leave sooner if they want, because there are not many works for them to take.

VNE