To meet production schedules, companies have asked workers to work late overtime and even hired outside labor.
Mr. Nguyen Van Manh (32 years old) - a human resources staff at a garment company in Thai Binh said that in the first 15 days of December, he only recruited 9 new workers, less than 1/3 of the number in other months.
Sharing the reason for the difficulty in recruiting new workers, Mr. Manh said that during this time, workers often do not want to change their workplace or job. Partly because it is close to Tet, partly because they do not want to lose the Tet bonus they are about to receive. After Tet, workers will consider going back to work or changing jobs.
According to Mr. Manh, not only his company but also other companies in the area are facing the same situation. During this time, Mr. Manh mainly builds the company's brand so that employees can consider and prioritize their choices after Tet.
Large orders need to be shipped before Tet while human resources are lacking, forcing the company's leaders to mobilize human resources from many other sources.
“For the past two weeks, almost all office staff and production staff have had to support the inspection and packaging of goods for the finishing department. Human resources in these departments have also been partially transferred to sewing to keep up with the schedule,” said Mr. Manh.
In addition, garment workers are also encouraged to work overtime until 8:30 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m. as before. The company even encourages them to work two extra Sundays every month. Although they are very tired, according to Mr. Manh, most workers are sympathetic and try to have peace of mind during Tet.
Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan (36 years old) - owner of Tuan Duyen Garment Company Limited (Nam Dinh) - said that despite implementing many attractive policies and incentives, the labor recruitment situation at the end of the year is still quite gloomy.
“After half a month, I have only recruited 5 people because no one wants to quit at the end of the year. My company also does not have enough potential to compete with other large companies in the area,” said Mr. Tuan.
To ensure production progress, Mr. Tuan had to apply the method of requiring workers to work overtime and recruiting additional outside workers.
Mr. Tuan said that he kept all the skilled workers to work until 7:30 p.m., working 1.5 hours overtime compared to before. When asking for overtime, Mr. Tuan supported an additional 30,000 VND and emphasized that it would only work until Tet, so most people happily agreed.
On Sundays, Mr. Tuan hires outside workers to iron and sew samples, paying them 150% of their normal salary. This business owner even lets private workshops take the goods home to process and produce.
In order to ensure the quality of products when hiring outside workers, Mr. Tuan only prioritizes those with good or higher skills and who live close to home.
Even though he has to pay a higher salary and unit price than normal workers, Mr. Tuan said he still has to do it to ship the goods on time or he will have to pay a huge compensation.
