LookAtVietnam – A programme to inspect and handle the movement of guest workers going abroad will be submitted for approval at the next session of the National Assembly.

Nearly 46,000 labourers went overseas in the first eight month of this years, 50 per cent of the target for 2009.

Loi, speaking in HCM City last week at a conference on policies and laws governing overseas labourers, said the present licensing of labour-export enterprises often created difficulties for State agencies.

Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, head of the Overseas Labour Management Department under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), complained that only one-third of labour-export enterprises ran their businesses efficiently.

“There is no criteria to assess activities of enterprises working in the field of labour export,” he said. “Assessments to date are only based on the number of an enterprises’ contracts and labourers.”

Quynh said that his department was creating a document to help evaluate the efficiency of labour export businesses. This would show ways of improving the quality of export workers and controlling incompetent enterprises.

“Some newly established enterprises simply lack experience,” he said. “Under the draft criteria, businesses that fail to send workers abroad within a year will have their licences revoked.”

According to a department report, 29 out of the 164 existing labour-export enterprises did not sign a single export contract between 2007 and 2009.

The report also said that only 54 enterprises had sent more than 1,000 labourers overseas in the same period, while 16 had sent less than 100.

Left from the NA’s Committee for Social Affairs said that this created confusion and distrust among labourers, possibly leading to a reduction in numbers.

“Most enterprises just think of profit, not benefiting labourers,” he said. “Besides, many labour exporters don’t recruit directly but through intermediaries,” he said.

“This leads to inconsistent and unclarified service costs among enterprises. Many labourers have to pay fees to 10 times higher than advertised just to find work.”

Nearly 46,000 labourers went overseas in the first eight month of this years, 50 per cent of the target for 2009.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News