VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam is drafting a Law on Employment which will help casual workers to develop their job skills, access employment and improve their standards of living.

A female labourer does her wood carving at the La Xuyen Village in Nam Dinh Province. Viet Nam is drafting a Law on Employment which will help casual workers to develop their job skills, access employment and improve their standards of living.

Speaking at a workshop earlier this week to gather public opinion on the new draft law, organised by the National Assembly's Committee for Social Affairs, the committee's deputy head, Bui Sy Loi, said that the Law on Employment was needed to provide regulations for casual workers which make up 67 per cent of the country's work force.

However, Viet Nam's 2012 Labour Code, which came into effect last May, mainly focuses on labour contracts in the formal sector, he said.

At present, Viet Nam has 52.58 million people of working age. Nearly 70 per cent of them are in rural areas and 28.6 per cent are aged between 15 to 29. They supply abundant human resources for the country's socio-economic development, but also add to employment pressures each year.

Under the draft, a National Employment Fund has been mentioned as a possible financial mechanism that could create jobs and support workers and employers, said Loi.

The fund offers preferential loans for individuals, household businesses, co-operatives and small and medium enterprises.

The backbone of the draft are the funding policies that support job creation schemes, job changes for people in rural areas and support for young job seekers or those who want to work overseas.

He suggested that disabled people, those from ethnic groups or those who had lost their land should be prioritised for low-interest loans.

Casual workers usually have no contract or at best a short-term contract, so these workers, self-employed people, low and unskilled workers, are in an insecure position, Loi emphasised, urging that more detailed legal framework needs to be drawn up for this section of the workforce.

For example, many participants at the workshop asked the Government to produce detail incentives to attract enterprises to rural areas because a large proportion of the workers there are untrained or low-skilled workers.

National Assembly deputy Nguyen Ngoc Phuong from central Quang Binh Province said that the draft should pay more attention to labour demands as well as policies that support job seekers.

He said that legislators need to come up with mechanisms to ensure that trained workers could satisfy these jobs, noting the current situation where trained workers had to undergo further workplace training despite the Government investing a substantial amount in job training at schools.

The former official of the NA Committee for Social Affairs Dang Nhu Loi, said that Viet Nam's current unemployment rate was roughly 2 per cent, quite low compared to other countries around the world but Viet Nam was still a poor country.

He explained that this was because many people had jobs but their earnings were not even enough to feed themselves and their families.

"People with jobs should understand, as they earn enough money to meet basic living standards or can feed themselves and their families," he said, pressing for more practical steps to be taken to support poor and low-income earners to access proper jobs.

The bill is expected to be completed and submitted to the National Assembly Standing Committee next month.

Source: VNS