Important basis for negotiating salary adjustments
The main point of the project is to improve the quality of data to serve the compilation of the minimum living standards of residents, ensuring that from 2026, the minimum living standards of residents divided by urban - rural areas are announced annually.
The project also sets a goal to determine the calculation method and data source to compile the minimum living standard for workers. From 2028, the minimum living standard data for workers will be announced annually.
In 2026, the Ministry of Finance will coordinate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and the Ministry of Health to complete information quality assessment to compile the minimum living standard from the population living standard survey. The project also sets out the task of researching and developing a method of "valuing minimum needs". Accordingly, functional agencies will identify the list of food, foodstuffs, non-foodstuffs, and minimum foodstuffs and criteria for determining the volume of the above items in the minimum living standard of workers.
Mr. Le Dinh Quang - former Deputy Head of the Policy and Law and Labor Relations Department (Vietnam General Confederation of Labor) - said that the minimum living standard is an important basis for negotiating the annual minimum wage adjustment as well as forming this wage level. As a member of the National Wage Council for many years, Mr. Quang analyzed that the minimum wage is the wage that ensures the minimum living standard of workers. Therefore, the minimum living standard is an extremely important factor.
He recalled that in Resolution 27 on salary policy reform, the Central Government assigned competent agencies to announce the annual minimum living standard to help members of the National Wage Council negotiate and propose the minimum wage. Therefore, from 2018, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor has repeatedly proposed the announcement of this index. In the current context, the minimum living standard index is very necessary for building a new salary policy, to ensure science and harmoniously resolve the interests of relevant parties.
Currently, the determination of the minimum living standard is mainly based on the method of surveying people's living standards. This index is a combination of many factors, including determining the level of consumption of essential goods. With this context, Mr. Quang proposed to determine the minimum living standard based on the actual situation, when the demand for food and foodstuffs is decreasing while the demand for non-foodstuffs is increasing.
Completing the calculation method
Dr. Doan Van Tinh - Deputy Head of the Department of Human Resource Management at the Academy of Public Administration and Management (Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics) - assessed that the implementation of a separate survey on employee spending according to the Government's decision is not simply a statistical survey but also a shift in the approach to policy management. He said that the meaning of this survey is expressed in 3 aspects: Ensuring the representativeness and specificity of data; approaching international standards through the "Valuing minimum needs" method and contributing to transparency of labor relations.
To make minimum living standard data truly an important basis for salary reform and labor policy in the coming time, Dr. Doan Van Tinh shared that it is necessary to synchronously implement many systematic solutions.
First of all, according to him, it is necessary to institutionalize the construction of a minimum living standard in the direction of multi-sectoral coordination, not only the task of statistical agencies but also the participation of ministries and sectors such as: Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Home Affairs, along with policy criticism from the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. This coordination aims to ensure that the basket of essential goods and services accurately reflects nutrition standards as well as the living needs of people in the current context.
In addition, it is necessary to promote the application of technology and digital transformation in data collection and processing to ensure that information is "correct, sufficient, clean and up-to-date", thereby reducing data latency and helping wage policies reflect more closely the fluctuations of the labor market.
Minimum living standard data also needs to be integrated into the multi-layered social security system, as a basis for designing not only salary policies but also social assistance policies, social housing and social insurance. This will contribute to building a broader national social security floor coverage.
