The Ministry of Home Affairs is seeking opinions on the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Labor Code, the Archives Law, the Gender Equality Law and the Red Cross Activities Law.
A noteworthy point, which is of great public interest in this draft law, is that the Ministry of Home Affairs proposes that depending on the annual conditions, the Prime Minister decides the specific holidays, and the Minister of Home Affairs announces the schedule before December 31.
First of all, the Prime Minister's decision on holiday schedules is not entirely new. According to current regulations of the Labor Code, the Prime Minister has decided on holiday schedules for two major holidays, Lunar New Year and National Day every year.
Based on the proposal of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Prime Minister chose the option of holidays and working day swaps to create continuous holidays, convenient for workers and social activities.
The remaining holidays such as New Year's Day, Hung Kings Commemoration Day, April 30 - May 1 and upcoming Vietnam Culture Day November 24, are implemented according to the fixed regulations of the law.
Therefore, this proposal can be understood as expanding the Prime Minister's operating mechanism, which is being applied to Lunar New Year and National Day, to all holidays of the year.
The purpose is to create a more flexible mechanism to serve workers and meet the requirements of socio-economic development at each time.
In fact, each year holidays fall at different times. There are five mid-week holidays, some years near the end of the week, and some years forming short breaks that are difficult to take advantage of.
Therefore, arranging and swapping working days to form continuous holidays has become a familiar solution for many years.
It can be said that this proposal is actually legalizing flexibility in management that the Government has effectively implemented for many years for major holidays.
Instead of being constrained by rigid regulations, the operating agency will have more tools to balance harmony between people's rest needs and the production and business requirements of the economy.
Experience from Lunar New Year or National Day holidays shows that reasonably arranged holidays often receive high consensus from society.
Workers have more time to rest, reunite with family, travel or solve personal problems. Services, trade, transportation, and accommodation industries also have growth opportunities thanks to increased consumer demand.
In the context of the economy shifting strongly to a model that relies more on domestic consumption, each holiday is not only meaningful for rest but also becomes a significant driving force to stimulate demand.
However, flexibility also needs to go hand in hand with stability and predictability.
Businesses need to know the holiday schedule early to develop production and business plans. Workers need to know in advance to arrange work, book train and bus tickets, and plan for their families.
Therefore, the proposal to assign the Minister of Home Affairs to announce the holiday schedule for the following year before December 31 is a reasonable option, receiving high consensus.
