Housing for workers: Urgent need

(Baonghean) -Currently, in the Southeast Economic Zone, Bac Vinh Industrial Park, Nam Giang Industrial Park (Nam Dan), there are dozens of factories operating, attracting tens of thousands of workers. In addition to the workers in the province, there are also workers from Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh provinces..., they are having to rent expensive accommodation that is not safe. Lack of housing for workers in industrial parks is a limitation in attracting stable labor for projects.

The suffering of workers renting rooms:

Worker Dang Thi Nga from Xuan Son commune (Do Luong) currently working at BSE Factory - Nam Cam Industrial Park, shared: As a worker from far away coming to work at the factory, I first had to find a place to rent, but it was not easy to find one right away. A suitable place had a high price, and an acceptable place had uncomfortable living conditions. After a day of looking for a house, I was able to rent a house for 500,000 VND/month in Nghi Xa hamlet 8. My income at BSE Factory was only 2.2 to 2.3 million VND/month, of which the house cost 500,000 VND, and then there were the electricity, water, and food bills. I also had a small child in the countryside, but for the past few months I have not had any savings to send home because I just started working.

At the BSE electronic components factory, not only do workers not have centralized housing, but staff also have to rent accommodation to work. The factory's characteristic is night shifts, sometimes finishing work at 4-5am, many "navel" workers do not rent accommodation because it is expensive to have to travel dozens of kilometers to their homes, which is very difficult. Ms. Tran Hoang Yen - Head of the General Affairs Department of the factory, lives in Quan Banh, and has to go back and forth from home to the factory every day. Knowing it is difficult, but finding a job is great, so she tries to stay.

Boarding house in Bac Vinh Industrial Park.

Currently, BSE Factory has more than 700 workers, most of them are in Nghi Xa, Nghi Long, Nghi Hop, Cua Lo..., many people have chosen to go home after work, but the distance is long, traveling costs a lot of gas money and sometimes it is not safe when traveling on National Highway 1A with very high traffic density. Workers and employees at Hanoi-Nghe An Brewery are the same, "because production at the factory is stable, since the factory started production, many couples have become husband and wife, they all have to rent a house in Quan Hanh (Nghi Loc) to live" - ​​Ms. Le - Head of the Company's Administration Department said, the room rental price for these families in Quan Hanh is quite expensive, from 1 million VND or more. The factory does not have a dormitory for workers.

In Bac Vinh Industrial Park: Many households around the Industrial Park have built boarding houses for rent, with room rental prices ranging from 500,000 - 600,000 VND/month, but according to our survey, these rows of houses do not ensure living conditions for workers. Many rows of houses share toilets and bathrooms for men and women, which is very inconvenient. Worker Le Thi Thu Hiep in Minh Hop Commune (Quy Hop), after graduating from the Tourism College in Hai Duong, could not find a job so she went to work as a worker at the Matrix Teddy Bear Factory (China) in Bac Vinh Industrial Park.

Hiep said: The main salary is 1.9 million VND/month, if he has a part-time job (2 more hours a day), he will get about 3 million VND/month, but he has to rent a house for 450,000 VND/month. To save money, Hiep lives with Tran Thi Thuy, a worker from Tien Phong commune (Que Phong), who also works at the Matrix teddy bear factory. The rented room is only about 8 square meters wide, the cement ceiling is quite low, "in the hot summer, you can't sit inside, at noon if you don't go to work, you have to sit outside under a tree, and in the rainy season, the house leaks, water fills the house.

The worst part is that the toilets are shared across the entire row, with a total of nearly 20 rooms, and there is only one bathroom, so when one person takes a bath, the other has to wait…”- Hiep said. The rent, electricity (30,000 VND/month), and water (20,000 VND/month) also take up a significant amount of the workers’ expenses from their meager salaries. On top of that, there is not always enough work, and if the factory runs out of work, they give them unpaid leave without any compensation - the workers here said.

The room of worker Le Thi Hiep is only about 8 square meters wide.

Housing for workers is becoming urgent as the number of factories in industrial parks is increasing, many projects attract a lot of workers such as: Matrix teddy bear production facility with more than 3,000 workers, Haivina Kim Lien Garment Factory (Nam Dan) with 2,500 workers, Hanosimex Nam Dan Garment Factory with 800 workers, BSE (Nam Cam Industrial Park) currently has more than 700 workers... Especially now the number of workers in the South returning to their hometowns is very large.

Prospects from a housing investment project for workers

Nghe An Provincial People's Committee has quite preferential policies to attract investors to build housing for workers in industrial parks such as: State compensation for site clearance, investment in building essential infrastructure, housing areas for workers, low-income housing areas; exemption from land rent, land use fees within the project scope; application of the highest preferential VAT rate (tax rate of 0%); exemption from income tax for 4 years from the time of taxable income and 50% reduction of corporate income tax for the next 9 years and application of corporate income tax rate of 10% throughout the operation period.

The Provincial People's Committee also stipulates: Enterprises that build houses for workers (without collecting rent or collecting rent but the rental price does not exceed the social housing rental price as prescribed by the Provincial People's Committee) and enterprises that rent houses for workers to live in are allowed to calculate housing costs as reasonable costs (included in production costs) when calculating corporate income tax; are supported with preferential credit or interest rate compensation as prescribed; are allowed to borrow from the local housing development fund and other preferential loan sources (if any); projects that receive State support for technical infrastructure outside the project fence (transportation, electricity supply, water supply, etc.).

Despite such preferential policies, currently no investor, company or factory has invested in housing for workers. The economic recession and production difficulties have led investors to focus on production projects, even though they know that without housing, workers will not be able to "lose their jobs".

Regarding the policy of housing for workers, Mr. Huynh Thanh Dien - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee said: The Provincial People's Committee has agreed to allow the Management Board of the Southeast Economic Zone to invest in building a housing area for workers in the Nam Cam Industrial Park. The project has a total investment of 66 billion VND, the goal is to create a housing fund for rent at preferential prices to solve the housing difficulties for workers in the Industrial Park, on the other hand, to create a high-rise collective housing area with beautiful architecture, suitable with full infrastructure for the Industrial Park, contributing to creating more housing funds.

The project has a scale of 5 floors, total floor area of ​​6,350m2, providing about 80 rooms for about 180 people. The first floor includes a motorbike parking area, which can accommodate 180 motorbikes and about 30 bicycles. There is a community club, a communal dining room, a communal kitchen, a post office, a grocery store, 2 public restrooms, 1 hot and cold shower and laundry service area...; floors 2-5: each floor has a community room and rooms. Each floor has 20, private rooms, toilets, and a drying yard.

This will be a pioneering project in building housing for workers, meeting the needs and aspirations for food and accommodation of hundreds and thousands of workers working in Nam Cam Industrial Park. However, the project has only been approved, designed, built, etc. and has not yet been implemented. When this project is completed, it will only meet a small part of the housing needs of workers. Therefore, relevant levels and sectors need to continue to attract investment in new projects for this purpose or seek capital sources to invest in additional housing clusters for workers, to better ensure the housing needs of workers, avoiding the situation where some places have it and some do not.

Article and photos: Chau Lan