VietNamNet Bridge –  The average monthly income of a Vietnamese worker was ND4.6 million in the second quarter of the year, a figure that the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in its report called “fabulous”.  

The figure is understood as the total monthly income Vietnamese workers receive, including salary or wages from their main job, additional income for extra working hours, and allowances.

The average monthly income quoted was VND0.2 million lower than the income reported in the first quarter.

MOLISA’s report showed that the monthly income of female workers was lower than that of male workers, while workers’ incomes in rural areas were lower than in urban areas.

The workers in forestry, agriculture and aquaculture were the worst paid, at VND3 million a month. Meanwhile, construction workers received VND4.3 million. The highest pay of VND5.2 million was offered to workers in the service sector.

The highest average monthly income, VND7.7 million, was offered to managers, while highly qualified technical workers received VND6.5 million and untrained workers VND3 million.

Also according to MOLISA, the workers in the finance & banking and real estate sectors had the best incomes, VND8.1 million and VND7.6 million, respectively. These were the two business fields that saw the sharpest salary increases, compared with the fourth quarter of 2013.

“This completely coincides with the conclusion about the warming up of the real estate market,” MOLISA’s report says.

However, commenting on the average income of VND7.6 million for the workers in the real estate sector, Tran Quang Chat, chair and CEO of Hanoi Song Hong Investment and Real Estate JSC, said this was “utopian” thinking in the current context of the gloomy real estate market.

“I have heard that the workers of a company belonging to a state-owned corporation, which has just resumed its project implementation, receive only VND3 million a month, and they can only receive salaries once every three months,” Chat said.

Nghiem Van Bang, chair of HUD, a housing and urban development company, said that MOLISA appeared to be overly optimistic about the real estate sector.

“I am sure that many enterprises have to struggle hard to earn enough money to pay their workers,” Bang said, adding that many real estate firms reportedly owe hundreds of billions of dong to social insurance agencies

Tran Anh Tuan, director of Viglacera Infrastructure Investment and Development, noted that very few enterprises could offer the VND7.6 million salary as quoted by MOLISA.

Mai Duc Chinh, deputy chair of the Vietnam Labor Union, also noted that the majority of real estate firms are on the verge of bankruptcy and they do not have money to pay to their workers, and that he questions the calculation methods being used by MOLISA.

He also has doubts about the VND8.1 million income of banking workers.

“I know that many small banks are facing big difficulties, while many workers have resigned from their posts,” he said.

Tien Phong