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Delta residents shun low-pay, long-hour jobs
Factories in the Mekong Delta are short of workers as qualified would-be laborers say the pay is too low and the hours too strict.
Businesses from Long An, Tien Giang, Vinh Long, Dong Thap and An Giang Provinces have been complaining that they have too few workers to cope with increasing exports as end-of-the-year demands accelerate.
Nguyen Duy Nhut, Deputy General Director of Nam Viet Seafood Corp. (Navico) in An Giang, said seafood businesses in the region were “sitting on fire” because they don’t have the workforce to increase production as orders from foreign countries increase before Christmas and New Year’s.
Navico, Vietnam’s largest catfish processor and exporter, recently announced that around 200 vacancies needed to be filled urgently, but only a few applicants had applied.
Seafood processors in the southernmost province of Ca Mau now need more than 5,000 new workers, but Ly Van Thuan, General Secretary of Ca Mau Seafood Processing Association, said “it seems that firms will never manage to find enough.”
Taiwan-owned Ching Luh Shoes Co. in Long An Province is also struggling to find the 3,000 workers it needs.
Seafood, garment and shoes firms in Tien Giang Province now need 3,000-3,500 laborers, according the Tien Giang Industrial Zone Management Board.
The firms said they would provide benefits and send vehicles to drive workers to and from work, but few prospective employees have responded to the efforts.
Thuan said the Mekong Delta labor shortage was getting worse.
The main reason, he said, was that “people are not interested in working at factories all day every day, under lots of pressure, and without good pay.”
Workers at seafood, garment and shoes factories are paid VND1.1-1.5 million (US$61-84) a month on average, Thuan said.
Huynh Ngoc Mai from the delta’s Dong Thap Province recently quit after two years working for a shoe company in Long An.
Mai said she had to work eight hours a day in a cramped, noisy and dirty environment. She said the meals at the factory were unhealthy and that a lot of workers couldn’t do such jobs for long periods of time.
“It’s difficult to make VND1.5 million a month at seafood companies,” worker Le Van Ne from Can Tho said.
Ne said he has to work from dawn to dusk, sometimes plus night shifts, in a cold factory that smelled stinky all the time. “A really good worker can stay for several years. But many leave after several months.”
Phan Thanh Phi, head of the Long An Industrial Zone Management Board, agreed that businesses were not offering proper pay and working environments.
But he said the workers were to blame as well because “they aren’t familiar with industrial manners at work.”
Most of them were farmers and had trouble with the strict time management and schedules, Phi said. “The workers usually go to work when they feel like it and quit when they feel like it.”
Many delta residents prefer masonry, woodworking or shop-selling jobs because they can earn VND80,000-140,000 a day and are free from time constraints, he said.
Phi said the province was building 20 more industrial zones and will need 200,000 more workers.
“I have no idea where we’ll find them.”
thanhnien, sggp
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