(VOVworld) One of Vietnam’s key tasks is to finalize an 8-year plan on salary reforms until 2020, which will adjust base salaries to meet human resource development needs. Our editor now tells you more about this blue print.

Salary should help public employees feel connected to their workplace

Vietnam has undergone many salary adjustments over the past 30 years. The minimum wage has been raised 8 times in the last decade and has doubled in the last 4 years ago. The upcoming salary rise is based on the level of economic growth, the consumer price index and the state budget. However, given the current inflation, Vietnam’s the minimum wage remains very low and does not match the nation’s economic growth, making it difficult to motivate state employees to be devoted to their jobs, to fight corruption, or  to recruit capable personnel.

To deal with the problem, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs is completing a plan on the reforms of state employee salaries from 2012 to 2020. The existing pay system, which is state-subsidies oriented and based on educational level and length of service, doesn’t take into account of personal ability, job performance, creativity or work attitude. Dang Nhu Loi, former Deputy Head of the National Assembly’s Commission for Social Affairs, says salary should help public employees feel connected to their workplace and that proper pay means investing in development. But he points out the need to appropriately classify employees for rewards: “Pay should match a person’s work. It’s necessary to define who will be state employees and then figure out the level of their salaries. But unless the organizational structure is rearranged, salaries can’t improve the quality of the workforce”.

The plan focuses on drastic measures to mobilize new salary resources as the state budget is limited. In addition to tight salary management, the private sectors will be encouraged to participate in pubic services to ease the state budget burden. Doan Van Cuong, Head of the Salary Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, says renovation of public utilities is crucial: “To solve the salary problem we should create transparent and open conditions so that state agencies can pay for their staff with their own revenues. The state budget alone cannot solve the problem”.

The salary reform plan will be submitted to the Party Central Committee in  April. Nguyen Lan Huong, Director of the Institute of Labor Science, elaborates: “We improved the minimum wage system of the market sector last year and we will continue to raise state employee salaries this year. From now until 2015, we will see a major reshuffle in policies applied to the state employee system. Efforts should be made to ensure minimum living standards by 2015”.

Salary should be a key factor in making public officials dedicated to their jobs and in rooting out corruption. Salary reform is a major national policy issue as underpaid state employees will make the state apparatus collapse.

Anh Huyen