With more than 6 years of working as a school accountant in Hanoi City, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhung (born in 1998) receives a salary of about 7 million VND/month, not including allowances.
With this salary, Ms. Nhung said that she has to spend very sparingly to cover rent, living expenses and raising young children. In the months when tuition fees, medicine fees or weddings and funerals arise, the family is even more stressed.
Many times, I also feel sad when comparing my salary with the increasing cost of living" - Ms. Nhung shared.
Not only Ms. Nhung, many officials, civil servants, and public employees today also expect the salary policy to be adjusted soon to reduce the pressure of life, especially in the context of increasing living costs.
Recently, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed increasing the base salary to 2.53 million VND/month from July 1, 2026.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Van Trung - Department of Public Management, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics and Law (Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City) - said that a synchronous, long-term solution package is needed, not only stopping at increasing salaries but also innovating the salary payment mechanism and public administration.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Van Trung, the core foundation of reform is to improve the job position system. Accordingly, it is necessary to review and standardize the job position list for each agency; build a job description (JD) and a clear capacity framework; classify positions according to complexity, responsibility and working conditions.
In addition, it is necessary to design a new salary scale according to position - title, switching to paying salaries in specific amounts instead of the "coefficient multiplied by the base salary" mechanism.
Another important requirement is to link salaries with work efficiency. According to experts, it is necessary to build a transparent work performance evaluation (KPI) system; design a income structure including a basic salary of about 70%, allowances of about 20-30% and performance bonuses of about 10% or higher. Salary increases must be linked to the results of task performance and actual capacity.
Mr. Trung also said that it is necessary to gradually increase public sector income to approach the labor market, at least ensuring an average living standard and moving towards competition with the business sector in key positions.
Along with that, it is necessary to restructure income in the direction of reducing allowances, increasing main salaries; abolishing unnecessary allowances, including "hidden" incomes in official salaries and making income transparent. The goal is to make salaries the main source of income for cadres, civil servants, and public employees.
To have resources to implement reforms, it is necessary to continue streamlining staff, reducing the number in parallel with improving the quality of the team; restructuring budget expenditures, reducing ineffective recurrent expenditures;...
The expert emphasized the requirement to improve the quality of public administration and accountability; transparency in salary payment, cadre evaluation; application of technology in performance management, work monitoring; strengthening inspection and supervision to avoid the situation of paying salaries based on positions but still being egalitarian.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Van Trung, for salaries to truly become the main income of cadres, civil servants, and public employees, it is necessary to shift from the "salary increase" mindset to a "comprehensive reform of the salary mechanism", in which the focus is on paying salaries according to job positions associated with work efficiency, along with sustainable financial resources and improving the quality of public governance.
