The Government submitted to the National Assembly plans to increase retirement age and overtime hours.

Men 62 and women 60 years old to retire

Regarding the proposal to increase the retirement age, the Government submitted two options for the National Assembly to consider and comment on.

Option 1, retirement age of workers in normal working conditions: increase by 3 months each year for men and 4 months for women until men reach 62 years old and women reach 60 years old.

Option 2, retirement age of workers in normal working conditions: increase by 4 months each year for men and 6 months for women until men reach 62 years old and women reach 60 years old.

The Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs presented the draft Labor Code (amended).

At the same time, the draft also stipulates that the right to retire no more than 5 years earlier is granted to workers with reduced working capacity; those doing particularly arduous, toxic, or dangerous work; those doing arduous, toxic, or dangerous work; and certain special jobs and occupations.

The right to retire no later than 5 years for workers with high technical expertise, workers in management positions and some special cases.

Both options stipulated in the draft have a slow increase roadmap. With option 1, the retirement age for men will reach 62 years old in 2028 and the retirement age for women will reach 60 years old in 2035 (after 8 years for men and after 15 years for women from 2021). Option 2 has a faster roadmap than option 1: the retirement age for men will reach 62 years old in 2026 and the retirement age for women will reach 60 years old in 2030 (after 6 years for men and after 10 years for women from 2021).

The Government proposes to choose option 1 because this option has more advantages, better prevents risks when adjusting age for the labor market, avoids shock to the labor market, maintains social stability and is consistent with international practices.

Increase 100 overtime hours/year

Another content proposed by the Government is the regulation to expand the overtime agreement framework in special cases: increase by 100 hours/year compared to the current one (from a maximum of 300 hours/year to 400 hours/year).

The Government explained that the expansion of the overtime agreement framework is to meet the requirements of businesses and the needs of a segment of workers. The increased hours are relatively appropriate considering the combination of factors: socio-economic conditions; competitiveness of the labor market and investment attraction; business needs; needs, health and requirements to protect workers' wages.

This increase in overtime hours also only applies to certain industries and at certain times (seasonal order completion time), the draft law clearly states.

To overcome the negative impacts of overtime and ensure the immediate and long-term health of workers, the draft Labor Code stipulates that enterprises can only mobilize overtime work when workers agree. It ensures that the total number of working hours in a day does not exceed 12 hours, including normal work and overtime.

The law also stipulates higher wages: at least 150% for overtime on weekdays, 200% for working on weekly days off, and 300% for working on holidays and Tet. In addition, the draft adds a provision that the two parties agree to pay progressive wages higher than the above level to ensure the stability and development of the enterprise as well as protect the wage rights of employees and promote wage negotiations in accordance with the conditions of each enterprise.

The Government also said that the detailed decree will stipulate three principles for organizing overtime work exceeding 200 hours: enterprises must notify and receive approval from the provincial-level state labor management agency and must not mobilize workers to work overtime for long periods of time continuously and must arrange reasonable breaks for workers when working overtime. Third, it clearly stipulates industries that are allowed to expand the overtime agreement framework, such as some processing industries (textiles, garments, leather, footwear, etc.) and seasonal production industries (such as agricultural, forestry and fishery processing).

In addition to the above content, this amendment also stipulates a new, unprecedented issue regarding the organization of workers' representatives at the workplace. The draft law also proposes many other amendments and supplements such as: the issue of Lunar New Year holidays, adding annual holidays, adjusting working hours per day, adjusting criteria for determining and adjusting minimum wages, etc.