VietNamNet Bridge – While travel firms are pleased about longer holidays, many manufacturing enterprises fear they will spoil their production plans.

 

 

 

The expected six-day holiday will come after the nine-day Tet holiday. 

Travel firms are looking to cash in on a plan to give workers an extra long holiday at the end of April.

Meanwhile, businesspeople, especially owners of labor-intensive enterprises, are concerned about the days off.

Directors of garment companies are concerned that their workers do not come back to work after Tet, while they need to speed up production to fulfill contracts signed before with customers.

Pham Xuan Hong, chair of the HCM City Knitting, Embroidery and Textile Association, confirmed that garment companies need workers. The ads seeking garment workers can be seen everywhere in industrial zones in southern provinces.

Ha Duy Hung, general director of Dong Huong JSC in Binh Duong province, said he fears that the enterprise’s operation will get stuck because of state agencies’ leave for holiday.

“Everything will change because of the long holiday. We will suffer from delays in tax and customs procedures,” he explained. “While waiting for state agencies to come back to work, we may have to pay additional storage fees, or fines for late deliveries.”

The representatives of foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) have proposed tp MOLISA to reconsider labor regulations, complaining that unreasonable regulations make it difficult for them to organize production and optimize business plans.

Wang Chen Yi, general director of Everwin, a 100 percent foreign owned enterprise in Binh Chieu Industrial Zone in HCM City, noted that the government should consider thoroughly before making decisions related to workers’ holidays and that the decisions must be made to ensure economic stability.

In principle, Vietnamese workers have to make up for public holiday by working on Saturday. However, the director noted that as workers prepare for holidays, their productivity is not satisfactory.

Dr. Le Dat Chi, a renowned economist, noted that the policy on long holidays for Vietnamese workers and their low productivity have caused difficulties on domestic enterprises.

“The low productivity makes production costs higher,” Chi noted. “The enterprises in the labor intensive industries will suffer most from long holidays.” 

Meanwhile, some analysts argue that long holidays would do “more good than harm” to the national economy, because long holidays would help stimulate workers to travel and spend more money. 

This would help stimulate economic demand, and encourage domestic production.

Kim Chi