VietNamNet Bridge – Business owners have expressed their worry that the long 9-day Tet holiday would upset their production plans.

Nine days off for lunar New Year 2014

The Prime Minister has decided that the 2014 Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday will last from January 28 to February 2, 2014, or nine consecutive days instead of seven as initially planned.

Nguyen Hoi, Deputy Secretary of the Communist Youth Union of Quang Nam provincial enterprises, said the long Tet holiday would put big difficulties on garment, leather and glass companies. The Tet holiday will fall into early February on solar calendar – the high production season.

“If workers have to work overtime, the Tet holiday schedule would be arranged as per the agreements between the business owners and workers. Those, who work on Tet days, would get the pay twice or triple higher than the usual levels,” Hoi noted.

A senior executive of An Phuoc Garment Company in HCM City said he has to arrange more production shifts to increase the productivity so as to deliver products on schedule. “It is very difficult to get orders in the current difficult conditions. We have to deliver products to partners on schedule no matter what,” he said.

The decision on the long Tet holiday has also surprised construction companies. Tran Thanh Tuan from The Gioi Nha Building Material JSC in HCM City said in general, workers can only start their holiday just one or two days before Tet. As it is now the high production season, they would have to work hard in the upcoming days.

Tuan complained that with the early and long Tet holiday, the company would be on the defensive when drawing its production plan.

Meanwhile, the director of a construction company said the short or long Tet holiday does not have much meaning to him.

“Vietnamese always want a long holiday for Tet. Even if you ask them to come back to work soon, they won’t obey your instructions,” he said.

It regularly happened that workers left factories for home villages to celebrate Tet and then did not return to work after Tet.

“If business owners force their workers to return to work soon after Tet, they may lose all the workers. Therefore, I think a lot of business owners would allow a longer Tet holiday which lasts 10-15 days,” he said.

Nguyen Dang Trung, Director of Tam Cam JSC in Da Nang City, noted that the Tet holiday set by the State would be suitable to state employees or the workers at state owned enterprises. Meanwhile, private businesses may allow their workers to rest longer.

However, seafood companies now feel worried stiff about the long holiday. Tran Van Linh, General Director of Thuan Phuoc Seafood and Trade JSC, complained that no other country in the world arranges so many and long holidays like Vietnam.

According to Linh, workers have one day off after every two days of working.

“There are 105 Saturdays and Sundays every year. If counting the 10 days off in holidays and 10 days off in annual leave, the workers’ days off would be 1/3 of a year,” Linh said.

“In recent years, Tet holidays tend to last longer. Meanwhile, only 1/3 of workers come back to work on the required schedules,” he added. “This happens every year, which makes the production stagnant in the first month of the lunar year with the productivity down by 30 percent.”

Dan Viet