Deputy Nguyen Thi Kim Dung said that most officers are overloaded. In many agencies, they have to work until 7-8pm and also on weekends. She suggested that the municipal People’s Committee ask the central government to approve a specific mechanism for the city to deal with this matter.

According to the 2019 census, HCM City had the highest population density, with 4,292 people per 1sq.km, which leads to a huge workload on civil servants. In 2017-2021, one civil servant had to deal with 580 dossiers a year and the figure has been increasing year after year. They also had to implement other works.

With the staff downsizing, the pressure on civil servants will increase, which will lead to a brain drain at departments and local authorities.

HCM City Vice Chairman Hoang Van Hoan told VietNamNet on the sidelines of the meeting that there are two solutions which allow streamlining and settling the overload – applying high technologies at work and increasing wages. 

He said that increasing the number of personnel is impossible, so HCM City asked to keep the current staff and the proposal seemed to be acceptable. 

To ease the workload, HCM City will rotate staff in accordance with demands and population scale. 

The more populous areas will need more staff. The city will accelerate the application of technology and building of e-government. This will help ease the workload because most of the dossiers will be settled online.

Regarding the departure of many state officers leaving state agencies for the private sector, HCM City will apply Resolution 54 to increase the incomes of state officers. 

On December 7, the HCM City People’s Committee submitted to the HCMC People’s Council a statement on increasing the coefficient for additional income to 1.8x (the maximum level) in 2023.

According to Hoan, the resolution will allow HCM City to implement this, but over the last five years, civil servants and public employees in the city still have not enjoyed the highest levels.

Ho Van