The average monthly salary of aviation and oil and gas workers is nearly 10 times more than garment and textile workers, reported the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

The average monthly salary of aviation workers is 13 million dong.

In its December 15 report about labour supply-demand in Vietnam, MoLISA said that salary policies are inflexible and inaccurate.

According to the report, the average salary is high or fairly high for employees of some sectors like aviation transport, oil and gas, finance (5.2 million dong/month), stationery and computer equipment manufacturing ($4.4 million dong), coal mining ((3.7 million dong), post and telecommunication (3.7 million dong), health (3.4 million dong) and power generation (3.3 million dong).

At the same time, the average salary is very low for aquatic breeding (1.1 million dong/month), forestry and footwear (1.3 million dong), textile and garments (1.4 million dong).

The ministry’s surveys show that independent workers make more than government employees. If the daily pay for a new university graduate in a state firm is 50,700 dong, a free laborer can earn from 80,000 t0 120,000 a day to plant rice or to word as a porters.

The report said that Vietnam has over 44 million people of working age. Of employed laborers, over 70 percent have unstable jobs who are vulnerable and face the risk of poverty. Rural labourers account for the highest proportion, around 52 percent.

According to MoLISA, the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) at 6.5-8 percent/year helps create jobs for 1.2-1.4 million people. However, the unequal growth of GDP in economic sectors and lack of early forecasts of labour demand in the market has caused redundancy in agricultural labourers and shortages for the industrial and service sectors.

Vietnam has an excess of unskilled labourers and short on trained workers. Some provinces where industry has developed strongly also lack enough workers. For example, Dong Nai annually lacks around 20,000 workers. So far this year more than 23,000 people in HCM City lost their jobs, but the city still needs up to 61,000 workers.

To solve these problems MoLISA proposed many solutions such as improving the physical health of Vietnamese workers, developing human resources, and changing salary policies.

PV