Comments on the 14th Party Congress documents: Towards a living minimum wage

For the document submitted to the 14th Party Congress, experts proposed to include content on minimum living wages to ensure a better life for workers.

Dr. Pham Thu Lan - former deputy head of the Institute of Workers and Trade Unions - Photo: HA QUAN

On October 28, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor held a conference to collect opinions from officials, union members and workers on draft documents to be submitted to the 14th National Congress of the Party.

Changing mindset, towards a living minimum wage

Dr. Pham Thu Lan, former deputy director of the Institute of Workers and Trade Unions, said that the minimum wage has met the minimum living standard but is not enough because the criteria for evaluating and calculating the minimum wage focus on the poor and low-income groups, which are no longer suitable for the current life and income of workers.

Dr. Pham Thu Lan proposed changing the mindset of minimum wage to a living minimum wage because workers still have many needs for nutritious food, transportation, education , healthcare, savings, etc.

"We have legalized the minimum wage but have not yet legalized a living minimum wage," Dr. Lan acknowledged.

She suggested that there should be an assessment of the implementation of minimum wages to meet minimum living standards after 40 years of innovation and the viewpoint of the goal of implementing a living minimum wage in the country's development in the coming period.

Regarding the action program, experts proposed that there should be a method for calculating a minimum living wage that meets international standards.

Mr. Ngo Duy Hieu - Vice President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor - assessed that the minimum living wage is an issue that the trade union organization is concerned about and will research and propose to the competent authority at the appropriate time.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs ' labor market bulletin for the second quarter of 2025, the country has 53.1 million workers. The average income for the first quarter of 2025 is 8.2 million VND/month, of which male workers receive 9.3 million VND/month and female workers receive 7 million VND/month.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has proposed to increase the regional minimum wage by 7.2% and apply from January 1, 2026. There are 4 minimum wage regions including: region 1 is 5.31 million VND/month, region 2 is 4.73 million VND/month, region 3 is 4.14 million VND/month and region 4 is 3.7 million VND/month.

Vice President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Ngo Duy Hieu chaired the conference - Photo: HA QUAN

Growth lessons of other countries

Colonel, Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Dinh Bon - former full-time secretary of the Central Theoretical Council - emphasized that the working class plays an important role, taking the lead in industrialization and modernization of the country, under the leadership of the Party.

Building a strong working class must be linked with socio-economic development strategies and training strategies to improve workers' qualifications.

Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Dinh Bon gave suggestions to groups of solutions to improve ideology, strictly implement the Party's democratic centralism principle, develop a team of pioneering, exemplary, disciplined, and capable Party members...

Professor Dr. Tran Thi Van Hoa - former Vice Principal of the National Economics University - told the story of learning enterprises, innovation culture, encouraging garment workers to come up with initiatives and giving timely rewards.

She gave the example of a worker who specializes in sewing sleeves, also thinking about how to sew faster, more beautifully, and increase productivity to talk about the lesson of innovation awareness from workers. Therefore, trade unions must be aware of and clearly demonstrate their role in the country's development goals.

Professor Tran Thi Van Hoa talked about the goal of making Vietnam a high-middle-income country and the lessons from China, South Korea, and Singapore about continuous GDP growth of over 10%. The common point is that these countries all exploit the role of innovation, high-quality human resources, and build a creative culture throughout society...

Similarly, Associate Professor Dr. To The Nguyen, University of Economics, Vietnam National University, Hanoi suggested that the role of total factor productivity (TFP) should be clearly stated so that the growth target is clear, easy to understand, easy to do, and easy to orient. For example, to have a high-quality workforce, Vietnam must develop leading, core training institutions.

Concluding the conference, Vice President of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor Ngo Duy Hieu said that the comments will be compiled, filtered and completed with contributions from the grassroots to have the best content, demonstrating the Union's role as representative of workers.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/gop-y-van-kien-dai-hoi-dang-xiv-huong-toi-tien-luong-toi-thieu-du-song-20251028132558784.htm