They can’t use their expertise or their positions to earn extra money, many state employees have to lean on their families or do extra jobs to sustain their livelihood.

Manual labor

Mrs. H, a state employee at a statistic agency, has worked for over 20 years and earned nearly VND3 million of salary a month. Her husband has retired for five years due to poor health. With VND4 million ($200) a month (including VND1 million of retirement pension of Mrs. H’s husband), the four-member family faces deprivation when their two children entered secondary school.

Everyday, after leaving the office, Mrs. H hurriedly prepared dinner for her family and then made votive paper products at home, the job that her husband has done since he retired.

This extra job is not very hard. Mrs. H often worked until 11 pm to earn VND50,000-60,000 ($2-3) a day, which is sufficient to pay part of the expenditure for cookings. The salary of VND4 million is paid for school fees and potential problems.

“Sometimes I questioned myself whether I can continue like this when my children enter high school and university. If they can enter university, we would be very happy but we would also worry because the price is on the rise. Salaries also increase but price increases are higher,” Mrs. H said. Mrs. H said that her family has never gone to a restaurant.

To sustain her family, Mrs. T from the National Center for Hydrometeorology has an extra job on the weekend: selling plastic bags to shops and markets. She earned from VND3.5-4 million a month from this job, equivalent to her and her husband’s salary.

T often bought rice, spices, detergent, etc. from the early of the month by her earning from selling plastic bags and salary was reserved for other tasks like weddings, funerals, drugs, bills, etc.

T recently did another extra job, transcribing interviews for researchers, at the price of VND30,000 ($1.5) for five A4 pages.

“This job is low paid but it is not hard and I can do it whenever I have free time,” T said.

However, whenever her family faced unexpected problems, especially when a family member is sick and has to go to hospital, Mrs. T has to ask for assistance from her parents and brothers and sisters.

Mistletoe

There are state employees who have worked for nearly ten years but they still have to live on their parents’ support. This is not surprising because VND2 million ($100) of salary is not enough to cover basic needs.

Ms. L, has worked at the Map Publishing House under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for several years. “My parents paid for my four years at the university and until now they have to still support me. If my salary doesn’t increase, they may have to support me until I get married,” she complained.

There are families in which both the wife and husband are state employees their children are entirely supported by grandparents.

A state employee wrote on an online forum: “I and my husband work for state agencies and my family (with two children) can still sustain ourselves thanks to the assistance of my parents”.

“My salary (she has worked for 12 years) is enough to take my children to the bookstore several times a month and to buy some milk for them. My parents paid school fees for my children. The whole spending in my family is covered by my parents (they live with her parents-in-law). My younger brothers and sisters, who work for foreign-invested firms, sometime help us. It is shameful! I’m trying to find a solution because my parents can’t live forever to help us but I have not found a feasible way!”

On a popular online forum for parents, many members told their own stories when they have to live with modest salary of state employees. Most of them said that part of state employees who earn low salary and they don’t do extra jobs but they can survive because their wives or their husbands work for the private or foreign-owned sectors with high salaries or their parents are wealthy.

It is a tragedy if both the wife and the husband are state employees and their families are not well-off.

Though their salary is low, some state employees still have money to trade securities and real estate and with just one successful affair, they can ear as much as their salary in a dozen years. The capital for securities and estate trading comes from their rich families, not from their jobs.

VietNamNet asked a state employee why he doesn’t quit his job to do private business, he said that he needed an official position at a state agency because this position could help him a lot when he does other jobs.

Cam Quyen