Workers at Suzuki Viet Nam JSC, a foreign direct investment company specialised in assembling motorcycles, based in Loteco Industrial Park in the southern province of Dong Nai. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

While labour productivity in Viet Nam remains low compared with neighbouring countries, the drastically disproportionate increase of minimum wage and wages might harm the competitiveness of businesses and the long-term development of the country.

The minimum wage grew at double-digit annual rates from 2007-2015, outpacing that of per-capita GDP and the consumer price index.

These findings were revealed in a report by the Viet Nam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) and Japanese economic experts which was released yesterday in Ha Noi at the workshop “Labour productivity and wage growth in Viet Nam.”

Futoshi Yamauchi, senior economist from the World Bank, and member of the research team, said Viet Nam’s minimum wage increases can have more negative effects than positive, citing the finding which showed an increase of 100 per cent would cause profits over revenue of businesses to fall 3.25 per cent.

Nguyen Duc Thanh, head of VEPR, expressed concerns over such differences.

“Continuously increasing minimum wage independent of the country’s labour productivity is contrary to other countries in the region. […] We researchers have to ask, is increasing minimum wage just a way to ‘please’ employees and the majority of the people, regardless of the consequences it might bring to the overall economy?,” Thanh said.

He explained that the increase of minimum wage coupled with stagnant growth of productivity “erodes” businesses’ ability to accumulate capital and reduces investors desire to do businesses in the country, as well as their profits – a combination that undercuts the economy’s competitiveness.

Thanh’s calling ensuring minimum wage a “failed policy” was echoed by the majority of the experts at the workshop, who suggested that the Government utilise other complimentary forms of social protection rather than relying on minimum wage. He also recommended switching to hourly minimum wage from the current monthly policy so as to better ensure the rights of more workers as well as afford more flexibility in recruitment and work arrangements for employers.

Truong Dinh Tuyen, former trade minister, explained that as a social protection tool, minimum wage policy can be considered “ineffective” as it fails to reach 50 per cent of the labour force as it only covers contracted or salaried workers, while uncontracted workers are left out.

Some urged caution in branding the minimum wage policy a ‘failure’ as it’s a politically and socially sensitive issue, however, experts agreed that the focus on minimum wage at the central level should be shifted to find ways to boost Vietnamese productivity, which can eventually be the determining factor for an employee’s wage.

Professor Kenichi Ohno, from Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, said he hasn’t seen “any serious action” from the Vietnamese government regarding the improvement of labour productivity. He added that in the future, Japan and Viet Nam will have more concrete co-operation efforts in tackling this situation, in terms of changing the mindset as well as more research and resources on the development of successful foreign productivity-boosting models. — VNS