Rising investment in Vinh Phuc's industrial parks (IPs) has created jobs but also challenges in labor management, requiring improved administration to foster stable employer-employee relations.
Harmonious employer-employee relations in industrial parks stabilize labor supply and attract new investors
Vinh Phuc province has 17 industrial parks with a total area of 3,146 ha, including nine in operation. As of November 15, 2024, its industrial parks attracted 497 valid investment projects, including 121 DDI projects with VND38,973.01 billion of investment capital and 376 FDI projects with US$6.8 billion. IPs have created jobs for more than 142,440 workers. Given the rapid IP development, the labor demand in industrial parks will increase as a result. Therefore, State labor management in industrial parks has also faced many difficulties to ensure a harmonious, stable and growing relationship between employers and employees.
The Vinh Phuc Industrial Zones Management Board has implemented comprehensive measures to enhance labor management in industrial parks. These include strengthening legal education for employers and workers, prioritizing welfare policies, advocating for worker housing and cultural projects, collaborating with agencies to improve training and vocational skills, supporting tenant recruitment efforts, reinforcing labor inspections and advancing IT-driven management solutions.
In addition, the board has worked out plans for implementation of the “Developing harmonious, stable and progressive labor relations in local businesses in 2021-2025” Project and the “Improving the lives of workers in local industrial parks in 2022-2026” Project; informed and carried out “Labor Safety and Hygiene Month”; and deployed plans to investigate and survey labor demands by tenants in IPs. It has advised and asked the Provincial People's Committee to adopt various mechanisms and policies to attract and retain workers in local companies.
In October 2024, the Vinh Phuc Industrial Zones Management Board, in collaboration with the Industrial Park Trade Union, engaged with tenants to encourage trade union participation. The board also requested companies to report compliance with the base salary requirements under Decree 74/2024/ND-CP, conducted inspections on labor management enforcement per Decision 91/QD-BQLKCN (Sept. 7, 2024), and processed six labor regulation and four overtime notices from businesses. In November, eight labor regulations and three overtime notices were received and processed. As a result, many businesses have fostered stable, harmonious labor relations, ensuring employment stability. Some have implemented rotational work and reduced operating capacity, while others, having received renewed orders, are actively recruiting more workers.
For example, 100% South Korea-invested Jahwa Vina Co., Ltd (in Khai Quang Industrial Park) has a large workforce of more than 3,000 workers. Every year, the company organizes many useful and meaningful programs and activities like Propagating and educating legal knowledge for employers, supervising regulatory compliance and protecting legitimate rights and interests of employees, providing free medical checkups and consultations, visiting and presenting gifts to employees, supporting poor employees to build houses, organizing cultural, artistic, physical education, sports and family festivals to care for their cultural and spiritual life. It also launched emulation movements, promptly praised and rewarded employees with outstanding achievements in the “Excellent workers, creative workers” movement and “Studying to improve qualifications and professional skills to meet national industrialization and modernization requirements” movement.
As a result, the employer-employee relationship has kept developing harmoniously and stably. The company always strictly applies the salary and bonus regime, ensures full social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance for employees; regularly organizes periodic dialogues at the workplace to promptly grasp and resolve emerging production matters; and sign collective bargaining agreements with many provisions beneficial to employees like shift meal allowance increased to VND20,000 and pregnant women working seven hours a day to get eight-hour pay from the seventh month of pregnancy. The company always strives to find new orders to provide enough work for employees and pay salary on time. Currently, an employee has an average monthly income of VND9-10 million.
Cosmos Technology Co., Ltd (in Khai Quang Industrial Park), which specializes in precision engineering, currently has more than 190 employees. In recent years, the company has developed regulations to ensure personnel for business operations and workforce development; fully complied with recruitment regulations, publicized recruitment information, rejected underage labor, and adopted non-discrimination in recruitment. To ensure income for workers, the company has developed salary and income regulations as a basis for wage payment. At present, the average monthly salary of an employee is VND7.2 million.
In general, tenants in Vinh Phuc industrial parks have fully adhered to worker benefit policies, with improving understanding and implementation of labor laws among both employers and employees. Guided by relevant authorities and trade unions, labor relations have become increasingly harmonious. Challenges in labor relations have been effectively addressed, fostering mutual understanding between employers and employees. This positive shift has enhanced the business environment and contributed to further business growth.
Nevertheless, tenants in Vinh Phuc IPs confronted shortcomings in labor law enforcement. Workers are still living a hard life. Therefore, to improve labor management in industrial parks, provide enough laborers for companies and successfully realize the goal of having 23-25 industrial parks in 2021-2030, the Vinh Phuc Industrial Zones Management Board will continue to closely coordinate with relevant labor authorities, carry out policies and strategies on high-quality human resource development, survey labor recruitment needs of tenants in IPs to consult the province on developing demand-based training policies and mechanisms.
Lastly, the board will complete the digitization of the labor database for industrial parks, actively inform and guide tenants to ensure proper compliance with labor laws, foster harmonious employer-employee relations, stabilize the labor supply, and meet the demands of new investors in the industrial parks.
By Quynh Ngoc, Vietnam Business Forum
Vietnamese
