The Ministry of Home Affairs has responded to voters' petitions sent after the first session of the 16th National Assembly.
Voters in Da Nang City proposed that the National Assembly study and amend the 2019 Labor Code in the direction of reducing the maximum working hours of workers from 48 hours/week to 44 hours or 40 hours/week.
Voters believe that adjusting to reduce working hours will contribute to helping workers have more time to rest, regenerate labor, take care of their families, improve spiritual life and quality of life, in line with the progressive trend of labor and social security in many countries today.
Answering the above recommendation, the Ministry of Home Affairs said that Clause 1, Clause 2, Article 105 of the Labor Code stipulates: Normal working hours are no more than 8 hours a day and no more than 48 hours a week.
The State encourages employers to implement a 40-hour work week for employees.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, adjusting normal working hours is a major policy, directly affecting workers, employers, production and business organizations, labor markets, labor productivity, business competitiveness and socio-economic development. Therefore, this issue needs to be comprehensively researched and evaluated based on practice.
In the context that Vietnam's labor productivity is still low compared to many countries in the region, reducing normal working hours when there are no solutions to improve labor productivity may affect economic growth, the competitiveness of businesses, jobs, income of workers and labor costs of businesses.
At the same time, the requirement to recover and develop the economy, adapt to market fluctuations and the goal of striving to achieve double-digit economic growth in the coming time also raises the requirement to carefully consider when adjusting policies on working hours.
In addition, reducing normal working hours to below 48 hours/week also requires a roadmap and appropriate mechanism to ensure harmony of interests between employees and employers, avoiding affecting employees' incomes or significantly increasing labor costs of enterprises.
Based on the current legal regulations and the above analysis, the Ministry of Home Affairs believes that amending the Labor Code in the direction of compulsoryly reducing normal working hours from 48 hours/week to 44 hours or 40 hours in the current period is not appropriate.
The Ministry of Home Affairs proposed to continue to implement the provisions of the 2019 Labor Code; and at the same time continue to encourage employers to implement a 40-hour work week for employees when they meet the conditions.
