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Businessmen flock to the countryside to set up workshops
Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dong to buy land in big cities and wait for the workers coming from small provinces. Businessmen now tend to set up production bases in the countryside to save money.
After two months of looking for workers, Nguyen Thi Thuong, the owner of the Hai Hau liquor company, still could not recruit enough workers. “Workers all refused to work for us with the pay I offered. Things are very expensive in urban areas,” she said.
Thuong finally decided to relocate the production base to Ha Nam province, and the packaging workshop to the Thuong Tin district in the suburbs of Hanoi. “The decision turns out to be a wise move,” she said.
Thuong now feels satisfactory with the new working conditions. The area where she sets the production base can provide a profuse labor force, while the local residents do not demand high salaries, because they have to pay less here for the daily life than in big cities. As workers feel secure with their jobs, they do not intend to quit the jobs.
A production base far from the central area would certainly cause some difficulties to the distribution work. However, Thuong has affirmed that after considering pros and corns, she found out that it is more beneficial to set up the production base in the countryside. Instead of calling for workers to big cities, businessmen now set up factories in the areas where they can find workers.
“The transport costs just account for 40 percent of the expenses we can save. Especially, in the last two years, our productivity has become better thanks to the stable labor force,” Thuong said.
Maxport, a big garment company headquartered at No 88 Ha Dinh Street in Thanh Xuan district of Hanoi, has also “followed” its workers to go to Thai Binh province. A representative of the company said that the company can cut down expenses to run the two factories with thousands of workers since the day it relocated to Thai Binh province.
Nguyen Thi Lien, Personnel Director of Maxport, said that in Hanoi, the monthly income of 3 million dong would not be high enough to cover basic needs, because workers have to pay to rent rooms and expensive meals. Meanwhile, in Thai Binh, the company pays 2 million dong a month only on average, and the salary is high enough to satisfy local workers.
The time for rural areas to develop
Tran Thi Chi in Hai Hau district of Nam Dinh province, said that when she worked for a company in Hanoi, she got 3 million dong a month, but the sum of money could not feed her. Right after the Nam Dinh Garment Company opened a factory in Xuan Truong town, Chi immediately decided to return to the countryside to work for the factory.
Chi said that though the current pay is 500,000 dong a month lower than the pay she got in Hanoi, her life is better. “The higher pay in Hanoi was just enough to pay for room rent, electricity bills and meals. I could not save any dong after four years of living in Hanoi,” she said. Meanwhile, with the current job, Chi can save 20 million dong a year.
In December 2010, the Hai Duong Investment Joint Stock Company opened a garment factory with 500 workers in Hai Duong commune. The representative of the company said that setting up production bases in the countryside proves to be an indispensable tendency in the development process.
It’s a growing tendency that workers want to return to their home villages and work for the factories near their homes. This allows them to save money and have time to take care for the families. Meanwhile, businessmen can also benefit from setting up workshops in the countryside, because this helps them cut down expenses.
Hai Linh Duong
vietnamnet
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