Nghe An National Assembly delegation discusses salary reform contents
On the afternoon of June 25, the 7th Session of the 15th National Assembly gave opinions on the contents of salary reform; adjustment of pensions, social insurance benefits, preferential benefits for people with meritorious services and social benefits from July 1, 2024. Comrade Tran Thanh Man - Politburo member, Chairman of the National Assembly chaired.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY APPROVES TO INCREASE BASIC SALARY TO 2.34 MILLION VND/MONTH, INCREASE PENSION SALARY BY 15%
The National Assembly listened to Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra present the Government's report on salary reform; adjustment of pensions, social insurance benefits, preferential benefits for people with meritorious services and social benefits from July 1, 2024.
Accordingly, for the business sector, it is necessary to fully implement Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW, including 2 contents: Adjusting the regional minimum wage according to the provisions of the Labor Code (increasing by 6% from July 1, 2024); regulating the wage mechanism for state-owned enterprises (applied from January 1, 2025).

For the public sector, the Government proposed to implement 4/6 contents of Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW which are clear and eligible for implementation, including: Completing the salary increase regime; supplementing the bonus regime from July 1, 2024 (equal to 10% of the basic salary fund); clearly stipulating and guiding 5 funding sources for implementing the salary regime; completing the salary and income management mechanism.
For 2/6 contents of public sector salary reform, including: New salary tables (eliminating basic salary and salary coefficient); restructuring and arranging into 9 new allowance regimes; due to many shortcomings, it is necessary to continue to study and complete step by step, cautiously; at the same time, it is necessary to consider amending or abolishing many current regulations related to basic salary.
Accordingly, the Government proposes that during the time when conditions are not yet met, the basic salary and salary coefficient should be abolished to implement the solution of increasing public sector salaries from July 1, 2024 with 3 contents: Adjusting the basic salary from the current 1.8 million VND to 2.34 million VND/month (an increase of 30%); for researching, amending and supplementing the allowance regime and some special regimes of the armed forces and of cadres, civil servants and public employees in some specialized fields that arise unreasonable during the implementation process; reserving salaries and incomes for agencies and units that are currently applying special financial and income mechanisms.

The Government also proposed that the National Assembly allow the adjustment to increase pension and social insurance benefits by 15%; at the same time, for those receiving pensions before 1995, after adjustment, if the benefit level is lower than 3.2 million VND/month, the adjustment will increase by 0.3 million VND/month, if the benefit level is from 3.2 million VND/month to less than 3.5 million VND/month, the adjustment will be equal to 3.5 million VND/month; adjust preferential allowances for meritorious people according to the standard allowance level from 2,055,000 VND to 2,789,000 VND/month (an increase of 35.7%); social allowances according to the standard social assistance level from 360,000 VND to 500,000 VND/month (an increase of 38.9%).
Presenting the audit report, Chairwoman of the National Assembly's Social Committee Nguyen Thuy Anh presented the audit report on the above contents, in which she assessed: The adjustment of the basic salary from 1.8 million VND/month to 2.34 million VND/month is a remarkable increase, contributing to improving and enhancing the lives of wage earners, creating motivation to improve labor productivity and work efficiency.

However, along with increasing the basic salary, it is recommended that the Government pay attention to solutions to ensure resources for stable, long-term and effective implementation of the policy; strengthen the implementation of price control and management measures and other solutions to curb inflation, ensuring the target of increasing the average CPI in 2024 and the entire period of 2021-2026 assigned by the National Assembly; accelerate the progress of converting from fees to public service prices; there should be a mechanism to compensate the budget when the price of essential public services has not been adjusted in time compared to the new salary level, so that units implementing autonomy in regular spending can balance revenue and expenditure and have savings; ensure real autonomy when implementing financial autonomy.
CAREFULLY IMPLEMENTED, WITH A ROADMAP, ENSURE FAIRNESS AND REASONABILITY
After listening to the Government's report and the verification report of the National Assembly's Social Committee, the National Assembly held a discussion in groups. The National Assembly delegation of Nghe An province discussed in Group 3 with the National Assembly delegations of Bac Kan and Quang Ngai provinces. Comrade Thai Thanh Quy - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council, Head of the National Assembly delegation of Nghe An province chaired and directed the discussion.

Speaking at the discussion, delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Nghe An province, National Assembly Delegate of Nghe An, commented: Adjusting the basic salary from 1.8 million VND/month to 2.34 million VND/month (increase of 30%) in the current context is reasonable and logical, when the new salary tables have not been completed (removing the basic salary and salary coefficient); restructuring and arranging into 9 new allowance regimes.

The delegate from Nghe An also analyzed and made a number of specific proposals in the construction of a new payroll system. Accordingly, the Politburo issued Conclusion No. 35-KL/TW dated May 5, 2022 on the list of leadership positions and equivalent positions of the political system from the Central to the grassroots level as a framework for implementation. At the same time, the Party committees, Party organizations, agencies and units under the Central Government are responsible for continuing to review and arrange positions and titles according to the management hierarchy to ensure consistency and consistency with the list issued by the Politburo. The Government's report also clearly stated that there are 234 leadership positions and titles in the political system from the Central to the grassroots level associated with allowances (public service, position, concurrently, attraction, specific, seniority).

Delegate Vo Thi Minh Sinh pointed out that the current challenges are that in addition to the number of titles and positions as above; it is extremely difficult to apply all "equivalent" titles and positions to specific positions to calculate salaries according to the new salary table. On the other hand, currently the issuance of a list of job positions is almost available according to ministries, sectors, and vertical industries, but from job positions to describe specific jobs, corresponding payroll and many other contents have not been issued. Along with that, the current salary system has many levels, many salary scales, not to mention cases where the new salary is reduced compared to the old salary.
Based on the analysis of these difficulties, the delegate said that in the coming time, when continuing to build and perfect new salary tables and allowance regimes, it is necessary to carefully consider, on the basis of an overview between the subjects and components receiving salaries, with a reasonable roadmap; ensuring fairness, avoiding concerns after implementing salary reform according to Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW, Session XII.