Overtime up to 80 hours/month
From the beginning of 2025 until now, due to the company's regular overtime, Ms. Vu Thi Quynh (33 years old, VSIP Industrial Park worker) has had to hire someone to pick her child up and drop her off to grade 3 at a cost of 2 million VND/month.
"Every day I work 2-4 hours more overtime, my monthly income increases by 6-7 million VND, and my family's living expenses are more comfortable" - Ms. Quynh said. According to Ms. Quynh, overtime is one of the criteria she chooses for her workplace, because if she does not work overtime, her income will not be "enough to eat".
For the past half year, Maple Group (VSIP Industrial Park) has often had to mobilize overtime workers, sometimes months with overtime of up to 70-80 hours. The employee said that at times, the company mobilizes overtime all day on Sundays to ensure orders. According to the grassroots union, regular overtime helps employees earn a high income, which can be up to 20-25 million VND/month.
Also according to the representative of the Hai Phong Economic Zone Trade Union, in the first quarter of 2025, 86.4% of enterprises had increased and stabilized orders, while the remaining orders decreased but not significantly. To date, 94 enterprises have a need to recruit 8,433 workers. However, recruiting workers at enterprises is very difficult. Therefore, to solve immediate orders, many businesses have to mobilize workers to work overtime.
According to a survey by the Economic Zone Trade Union, the income of workers in industrial parks today still depends heavily on overtime pay. Overtime workers can accumulate nearly 20 million VND/year, but overtime workers have almost no savings (only about 500,000 VND/year). To ensure a standard of living and savings, many employees have to work overtime even though this can affect their health and family life.
Strengthening supervision of overtime regimes
In addition to ensuring overtime wages, many businesses in industrial parks are interested in taking care of meals for employees when they have to work overtime. At KORG Vietnam Co., Ltd. (Japan Industrial Park - Hai Phong), the company stipulates the main shift meal rate of 30,000 VND/meal; the overtime shift meal rate ranges from 24,000 - 30,000 VND/meal; the shift meal rate for night shift work is 38,000 VND/meal.
At IKO Thompson Co., Ltd. (Japan Industrial Park - Hai Phong), employees work overtime on weekdays, work overtime for 2 hours or more, the shift meal fee is 12,000 VND/person/meal, 3 hours or more, the overtime meal fee is 20,000 VND/person/meal...
In addition, the Economic Zone Trade Union directs grassroots trade unions to participate in developing a plan to adjust salaries and benefits according to the CPI.
According to the 2025 policy report of grassroots trade unions, Hai Phong Economic Zone has 92.4% of enterprises applying a minimum wage higher than the regional minimum wage (14.7%) with an average of VND 5,698,000. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, 123/345 enterprises will adjust the minimum wage from January 1, 2025 at an average rate of 5%.
The Economic Zone Trade Union also coordinated with grassroots trade unions to closely monitor the implementation of legal policies related to overtime; grasp the situation of public opinion on workers having to work overtime and work overtime regularly, leading to frustration.
Reality shows that businesses that do not work overtime have difficulty recruiting and retaining employees because the current minimum wage does not ensure the standard of living and daily living expenses of employees. The Zone Trade Union guides units to comply with regulations on overtime, collect opinions from employees before mobilizing overtime to avoid conflicts. Along with that, continue to negotiate wages and benefits, improve working conditions in collective labor agreements, aiming to increase income so that employees can feel secure in sticking with the enterprise for a long time" - Mr. Nguyen Hong Quang - Vice Chairman of the Hai Phong Economic Zone Trade Union said.
