National Assembly delegates propose changing working hours from 8:30 to 17:00

Delegate Nguyen Van Canh proposed that working hours start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 5:00 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break.

Discussing the socio-economic situation at the Hall, Delegate Nguyen Van Canh (Binh Dinh delegation) said that the world has researched and applied reasonable working hours, so the Government needs to research whether the current working hours are optimal or not? Currently, working hours across the country are from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a lunch break of 1.5 to 2 hours.

Mr. Nguyen Van Canh proposed that the Government conduct research to evaluate the effectiveness of changing working hours for public service administration and public education in urban areas.

Accordingly, working hours start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 5 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break. As for the production sector, non-state enterprises will decide their own working hours to suit the business conditions of each unit.

Delegate Nguyen Van Canh (Binh Dinh delegation).

Analyzing the effects of changing working hours and lunch breaks, Mr. Canh said that the first benefit is traffic. If working at 8:30, there is no need to arrange work hours to solve traffic problems. Everyone in the family has enough time to go to school and work without causing traffic jams, saving time and money.

According to Mr. Canh, the efficiency of public transport has also increased significantly due to the number of buses increasing by one and a half or double when comparing the time the bus can serve people from 6am to 8:30am compared to the time from 6am to 7am or 7:30am as today.

Regarding workers' health and work efficiency, the delegate from Binh Dinh said that studies on a short lunch break of about 20 to 30 minutes will help restore energy, alertness and improve memory, increasing work efficiency. However, studies also show that long lunch breaks have a higher risk of blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, stroke, lung disease, leading to death than other subjects.

"Taking a nap for too long also causes headaches and fatigue because the body's organs are not ready to work after a long sleep, leading to a decrease in work efficiency in the afternoon," said Mr. Nguyen Van Canh.

If working late, the family will have enough time in the morning for parents to prepare meals for their children, and have time to care about their children's studies, activities, and play at school. We will no longer see the image of mothers rushing their children to school, the children sitting behind holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a carton of milk in the other, which is not only bad for children's health but also unsafe for traffic. Or in many cases, fathers go to work without seeing their children.

"The fact that many students have to wake up at 5am to prepare for meetings, eat while walking, and some children still fall asleep when their mothers bring them to school shows that current school hours need to change to better educate children," said delegate Canh.

Everyone has the need to socialize with friends and solve personal problems. Working early will inevitably cause civil servants to use office hours to solve personal problems, whether sitting at a coffee shop or sitting at the office. If working late, the need to socialize with friends and solve personal problems will be solved before working hours. Thus, the working time at the office will be performed better and more effectively by civil servants.

According to Mr. Canh, working from 8:30 a.m. will save significant energy because lighting equipment is not used for about 1 to 1.5 hours a day.

It is believed that changing working hours will inevitably face difficulties if applied in practice because it will change previous working habits, affecting the living, working and studying conditions of many individuals and families. However, according to the delegate, only with change will there be development. If change brings greater benefits to the economic and social development of the country, priority should be given to the greater good.

However, if changes are made without fully assessing the advantages and disadvantages of all affected subjects, the change will be difficult to implement and difficult to bring high efficiency. Therefore, delegates proposed that the National Assembly and the Government study the change of working hours, collect full opinions from people and businesses, organize impact assessment workshops with domestic and international organizations and experts to fully assess the impact and effectiveness of the change of working hours./.

According to VOV