Proposal to reduce working hours to 40 - 44 hours/week: Need a roadmap associated with increasing labor productivity

Workers hope to have more time for their families

Attached to nearly 10 years of work at a seafood processing enterprise in Can Tho, Ms. Le Thi Chuc said that most of the time in the week is spent on work. Continuous overtime days make the time for family, children and personal health care limited.

When I come home from work, it's usually quite late, and I still take advantage of the weekend to do housework, so there is very little real rest time. If working hours are reduced while still ensuring income, every worker wants it" - Ms. Chuc shared.

According to Ms. Chuc, adding a few hours of rest each week is not too much, but it will help workers balance their lives better, have time to take care of their children, learn more skills or simply rest to regenerate labor.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tran Van Thanh believes that reducing working hours is an inevitable trend as labor productivity is increasingly dependent on machines and technology.

Currently, many stages have been automated. If businesses invest in good technology, production efficiency does not necessarily have to rely on extending workers' working hours" - Mr. Thanh said.

Need to soon build a roadmap to reduce working hours

The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor recently proposed amending regulations on normal working hours, in the direction of building a roadmap to reduce it to 40 - 44 hours/week instead of the current level of 48 hours/week.

Mr. Le Dinh Quang - former Deputy Head of the Policy and Law Department of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, said that this is a proposal suitable for the current development context.

According to Mr. Quang, Vietnam's working hours of 48 hours/week are still high, while the general trend in the world is to reduce working hours to improve the quality of life of workers.

He believes that the study of reducing working hours is also aimed at ensuring fairness between sectors. Currently, the administrative and public service sectors have implemented a 40-hour/week working regime for many years, while most workers in the production and business sectors still work 48 hours/week.

The public sector has been working 40 hours/week for a long time, while workers in the production and business sectors... still work 48 hours/week and only encourage reduced working hours. However, incentives are often not applied in practice" - Mr. Quang assessed.

According to the expert, with the strong development of science and technology, automation and modern management methods, the conditions for reducing working hours are now ripe. Therefore, it is necessary to soon consider amending the Labor Code to implement it.

He suggested that a specific roadmap can be built to implement the reduction of working hours. For example, from now until 2030, working hours will be reduced to 44 hours/week, from after 2030, study to reduce to 40 hours/week and possibly until 2045 consider reducing to 35 hours/week.

He pointed out that prolonging working hours shows the intensity of labor. Currently, with the development of science and technology, labor productivity depends heavily on equipment, machinery, application of science and technology, and modern business management skills...

Therefore, extending working hours is not a way to increase productivity, but it is important to apply science and technology, and modern management.

According to him, with the favorable conditions for applying science and technology today, there is a sufficient basis to reduce working hours but still ensure motivation to increase labor productivity and achieve the double-digit growth target.

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