MOLISA PROPOSES RAISING RETIREMENT AGE

MoLISA proposed raising the retirement age by the maximum of five years. At the meeting on May 19, 2017 between the prime minister (PM)’s working group and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), Mai Tien Dung, chairman of the Government Office, said that the PM required MoLISA to explain several controversies in its proposal to raise the retirement age.

Previously, according to MoLISA’s proposal, the government should submit to the National Assembly (NA) the amendments to the Labour Code, including a proposal to raise the retirement age. The retirement age in Vietnam is currently 60 for men and 55 for women. The ministry proposed to raise these to 62 for men and 58 or 60 for women.

In 2016, when explaining the proposal of raising the retirement age, Deputy Minister of MoLISA Pham Huu Huan said that Vietnam is in a period between its “golden population” and the aging one. The progress of the population growing older on average may be a slow one in developing countries, however, in Vietnam, it could take place within less than 20 years. Thus, sooner or later, raising the retirement age to utilise human resources is an unavoidable reality.

By raising the retirement age, Vietnam can utilise experienced human resources who are still strong enough to work. The next reason for this policy is the risk of imbalance in the social insurance funds in the future.

Huan said that in some other countries like Japan or Korea, the retirement age for men and women is 65, and in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, both men and women retire at 60.

“Raising the retirement age is a global trend. Vietnam is taking part in many international conventions on labour, and human rights. Besides, we have to ensure gender equality by raising the retirement age of women so that it is closer to that of men,” Huan said.

Besides raising the retirement age, MoLISA also proposed to maximise the total normal and overtime working hours at 12 hours a day and the maximum total overtime working hours at 400 hours a year.

Tuoitrenews reported that many companies said that the maximum overtime working hours in Vietnam are lower than in many other countries. The cap on overtime working hours in China is 36 hours a month, 56 in Indonesia, 72 in Singapore, 104 in Malaysia, and 36 in Thailand.

However, in Vietnam, it is stipulated that the maximum normal working time is 48 hours a week. The International Labour Organisation estimated that with overtime working hours of 400 hours a year, the total average working time of Vietnamese labourers may be up to 2,720 hours a year.

Meanwhile, the total annual working hours stipulated in Indonesia are 2,608 hours, 2,446 in Korea, and 2,288 in China. Thus, the working hours of Vietnamese workers are higher than in other countries.

Source: VIR