Tet bonus - a billion-dollar person, a person who is good enough to buy a bowl of pho

Tet bonus... sad

Ms. Bui Thi Tu is a worker at a garment company in Quang Trung ward (Thanh Hoa). For the past 3 years, the Tet bonus of Ms. Tu and her colleagues has been fixed: The company gave her a year's worth of beer for the New Year; the Lunar New Year bonus was 200,000 VND and 1 gift package (1 bottle of cooking oil, 1 package of instant noodles, 1kg of sugar).

"The total bonus for both New Year's Day and Lunar New Year is about 600,000 VND. Saying less seems to criticize the company's gifts, but it is true that we workers expect more valuable Tet gifts. In addition to the prize money, the cash of 200,000 VND is only enough to buy a scale of pork and banh chung, Ms. Tu sadly shared.

According to Ms. Tu, what makes her and many colleagues wonder is that there were years when the company had difficulty doing business, especially during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when workers did not wonder about Tet bonuses, and were even willing to only receive their salary on time to share the difficulties with the business. However, in the past 2 years, the company has been operating stably, orders have increased, and workers have worked overtime more, but Tet bonuses have remained unchanged. "There are also brothers who are concerned and have opinions with the manager, but the answer is that the recent profits are not enough to cover the previous difficult period," said Ms. Tu.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Loi - a worker at a mechanical company in Hong Van commune (Hanoi) with a 2025 Lunar New Year bonus - as he said: "We want to forget!".

Mr. Loi said that his company has about 70 workers and laborers, specializing in the construction of medium and small-scale mechanical works. In 2025, although the workers' salary is not late, the company's Tet bonus makes all employees... confused.

"At the year-end festival, the company's leaders spoke about difficulties, reduced orders, fierce competition... and announced the Tet bonus of only 50,000 VND/person. While we were still shocked, the leaders quickly said that they hoped the workers would sympathize. The group of 6 Phu Tho brothers discussed returning to their hometown by motorbike, using 50,000 VND as a Tet bonus to eat pho to say goodbye at the end of the year. This year, I just hope the Tet bonus will be better, but like the level of the previous year, I will probably laugh and cry," Mr. Loi recounted.

Some places reward billions of dong

The Tet bonus picture shows a strong difference between regions, localities, and business types. Therefore, in addition to those who received a Tet bonus of VND 50,000, Tet 2025 witnessed some people receiving a bonus of up to VND 5.68 billion.

Notably, the group of workers receiving low Tet bonuses, most of whom are a few hundred thousand VND/person, mainly in small and micro enterprises. The largest proportion is workers in provinces and cities with a bonus of several million VND/person along with Tet gift packages or train tickets.

The "huge" bonus of hundreds of millions or billions of VND is mostly mid-level or high-level leadership positions in FDI enterprises. In 2024, the average Lunar New Year bonus is 6.85 million VND/person, but the person with the highest bonus is up to 5.68 billion VND - senior management personnel of FDI enterprises.

In 2025, the average Lunar New Year bonus is 7.72 million VND/person (up 13% compared to 2024), of which the highest is 1.908 billion VND - belonging to senior management personnel at FDI enterprises. On New Year's Day 2025, the average bonus is about 1.46 million VND/person, the highest is about 1.8 billion VND - belonging to senior management individuals at FDI enterprises.

The "map" of the average Tet bonus in the last 2 years also shows the average increase and the gap between the "peak" and the "light" bonus is still very large. Even in addition to businesses giving bonuses of VND50,000, some businesses do not even have Tet bonuses.