VASEP proposes increasing overtime hours to compensate for labor shortage

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers sent an official dispatch to the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs contributing ideas to develop the Resolution on overtime hours.

Accordingly, when provinces/cities implemented social distancing under Directive 16, up to 70% of seafood processing factories had to stop production in the past 2 months, only about 30 % of the factories produced in moderation in compliance with “3 on-site”, “1 route – 2 destinations”.

The reason is that businesses cannot arrange accommodation for workers while implementing "3 on-site", "1 route - 2 destinations"; businesses suffer from labor shortages due to social distancing measures by provinces and cities preventing workers from going to work; they suffer from a shortage of raw materials and auxiliary materials in the export production supply chain due to difficulties in transporting goods between provinces.

These problems put seafood businesses at risk of breaking production supply chains, losing customers due failing to provide enough orders for customers.

Therefore, VASEP agreed to remove the limit on the overtime hours in a month to facilitate flexible production, in order to meet orders and deal with the labor shortage due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

VASEP proposed to increase the maximum overtime hours in a year from 300 hours to 400 hours, regardless of the manufacturing industry, to compensate for the serious labor shortage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

VASEP also proposed to temporarily remove the regulation on overtime organization under Article 62, Decree 145/2020/ND-CP. When an business has a plan for overtime work, it only needs to be based on an agreement between the employee and the employer.

This will help businesses be more proactive in arranging overtime plans depending on the actual situation of the business in terms of raw materials and labor force. The business is responsible for managing and organizing overtime in accordance with the provisions under the Resolution and is responsible for post-audit.