"Minimum wage is still not enough to meet the standard of living"

On the morning of October 25, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor announced the Research Report on minimum wages and minimum living standards of workers in the enterprise sector by the Institute of Workers and Trade Unions.

Sadly, this report shows that the minimum wage increase has not met the minimum living standards of workers.

According to the Institute of Workers and Trade Unions, the adjusted minimum wage for FDI enterprises and domestic enterprises only reaches 65% of the minimum living standard of workers.

Dr. Dang Quang Dieu, Director of the Institute of Workers and Trade Unions, said that the increase in minimum wage must be calculated scientifically and from the actual meals of workers and prices at the workers' workplace. The current general calculation based on indicators such as CPI and GDP will not fully reflect the actual life of workers.

In fact, the current level of payment by enterprises to workers does not meet the minimum living standards. Even the recently issued minimum wage increase does not meet this requirement.

Specifically, according to a survey by the Institute of Workers and Trade Unions, the minimum living standard is made up of three groups of factors including the food group, the non-food group, and determining the need to raise children.

Survey results from April 2011 to October 2011 in Hanoi (region I), with a food ration that meets the need of 2,300 kilocalories/day (including rice, meat or eggs, vegetables, bananas, fat, fish sauce, salt, water, gas), workers have to spend up to 35,300 VND/day. Thus, just for food, each month workers have to spend at least 1,059,000 VND.

The research results also show that the cost to meet the minimum living standards for workers in region IV is nearly 1.5 million VND/person/month, region III is nearly 1.9 million VND/person/month, region II is about 2.2 million VND/person/month and region I is more than 2.42 million VND/person/month.

Meanwhile, according to the Government's decision, from October 2011, the general minimum wage applied is 830,000 VND/month. For domestic enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises (FDI), there will be a unified minimum wage adjustment, for region I: 2 million VND, region II: 1.78 million VND, region III: 1.55 million VND, region IV: 1.4 million VND.

Thus, there is still a gap between the current minimum wage and the minimum wage that meets the minimum living standard./.

(According to Vietnam+)