Proposal to increase overtime to 400 hours/year

In the draft Labor Code (amended) released for comments for the second time, instead of two options, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs proposed an option to expand the framework for agreement on overtime hours between employees and employers.

Illustration photo.

The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said that the current Labor Code stipulates that overtime work is agreed upon by the parties, but the maximum overtime hours for employees is no more than 30 hours/month and no more than 200 hours in 1 year, in special cases no more than 300 hours.

Implementing this regulation since 1995 until now, there have been many opinions from businesses suggesting the need to increase the maximum overtime hours. Every year at business forums, business associations propose to increase the maximum overtime hours of employees to 500 hours/year to improve the production and business efficiency of enterprises, increase income for employees and increase the competitiveness of the Vietnamese labor market compared to other countries in the region.

Through monitoring and surveys in localities, a large number of workers also want to expand the overtime agreement framework to create conditions for them to work more to increase their income.

In addition, businesses also proposed to remove the monthly overtime limit (currently no more than 30 hours/month) because the regulation of monthly overtime would be rigid, inflexible, and not suitable to the actual production and business cycle of businesses (especially businesses that depend on export orders and business seasons such as: processing export goods, processing seafood for export).

However, other opinions suggest not increasing the maximum overtime hours.

After research and comparison with regional countries, the maximum overtime hours of Vietnamese workers are currently low (China: 36 hours/month, Indonesia: 56 hours/month, Singapore: 72 hours/month; Thailand: 36 hours/week; Malaysia: 104 hours/month; Laos: 45 hours/month; Cambodia and Philippines: No limit), in the draft Labor Code (amended) for the first consultation, the Ministry of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs proposed 2 options:

Option 1: Increase overtime hours to ensure that overtime hours and normal working hours of employees do not exceed 12 hours in 1 day and not more than 5 consecutive days for each overtime period; however, the total overtime hours of employees must not exceed 600 hours in 1 year.

Option 2: Increase overtime hours to ensure that overtime hours and normal working hours of employees do not exceed 12 hours in 1 day and not more than 5 consecutive days for each overtime period.

After receiving comments, in the draft released for comments this time, the drafting agency proposed to expand the framework of agreements on overtime work between employees and employers by increasing the maximum number of overtime hours of employees in 1 year to 400 hours to harmonize the interests of businesses and employees and increase the competitiveness of the Vietnamese labor market compared to other countries in the region, while removing the regulation limiting overtime hours per month and controlling overtime hours per day.

Specifically, in Article 82 of the draft Labor Code, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs proposed to stipulate: Ensuring that the number of overtime hours and standard working hours of employees does not exceed 12 hours in 1 day and the total number of overtime hours of employees in 1 year does not exceed 400 hours.

According to Chinhphu.vn