Workers stuck due to low income

Salary is not enough to live on

For more than 2 years, Mr. Bui Van Hanh (from Phu Ly ward, Ninh Binh) - currently an employee of a printing company in Phuong Liet ward (Hanoi) - has often lived the scene of "eating instant noodles overtime" at the end of the month.

Graduating from a college in Hanoi in 2023, Mr. Hanh applied to work at his current company and has been there ever since. Mr. Hanh's daily job is to prepare raw materials and control quality at the printing workshop. His salary when he first started working was 7.5 million VND/month, now he has 11 million VND/month.

Mr. Hanh is currently renting an old apartment near Ha Dong market (Ha Dong ward, Hanoi) for 4 million VND/month. In addition to renting a house accounting for more than 1/3 of his monthly salary, Mr. Hanh also spends on food, transportation, electricity and water. "The total fixed rates for renting houses, food, gasoline... are about 8.5 million VND/month. Of the remaining amount, I have to balance and spend on other unnamed items. Every lucky month, I don't have many weddings or get sick, I just spend 11 million VND in salary; every month, when there is a problem, I only eat instant noodles at the end of the month," said Mr. Hanh.

Mr. Hanh shared that he once thought about finding a new job with a higher income to improve his life, but for workers with college degrees and not as deep in expertise as him, finding a job for more than 10 million VND/month is not simple.

For the past 2 months, Mr. Hanh has been working as an extra driver in the evening on a technology motorbike taxi. "Every night I run for about 3 hours, earning 200,000 VND a day, earning less than 100,000 VND a day, and earning an additional 3-4 million VND a month. This amount of money helps me spend more "easy to breathe" but I often fall into fatigue and exhaustion," said Mr. Hanh.

In reality, in big cities, the common income of young workers ranges from about 7-9 million VND/month. With this figure, workers can maintain regular work, but it is difficult to ensure a minimum standard of living when living expenses are increasing.

Under spending pressure, many workers choose to work overtime or take part-time jobs. After work hours, they drive technology cars, sell online, work freely or take on short-term jobs.

Although it helps increase income in the short term, prolonged overtime work has the potential to affect health and efficiency of the main job. Many workers fall into the spiral of "working a lot but still not improving", when the rest time is reduced, the ability to improve skills is limited.

Employment quality is a bottleneck

Ms. Le Thi Anh Hoai - Head of Human Resources Department of Hanh Binh An Medical Technology Group (Cua Nam Ward, Hanoi) - commented that the core cause of the "low-income trap" is not only salary but also job quality. Many jobs are currently short-term, with flexible contracts, and few opportunities for salary increases and promotions.

Enterprises tighten costs and optimize personnel, making it easy for employees to fall into a situation of reducing working hours, cutting bonuses or not having their income adjusted commensurate with the general price increase of the market. Employment is available but unstable and unlikely, making it difficult for workers' income to improve in the long term. In addition, the service and informal labor sector - which attracts a large number of young workers - is the most vulnerable group.

"The situation of "having a job but not enough to live on" is prolonged, the consequences do not stop at each individual. Low-income workers are more likely to leave the social insurance system, choose informal jobs to earn more short-term income, weakening the social security foundation. In the long term, the "low-income trap" also affects the quality of human resources, when workers are not qualified to invest in studying and improving skills - a key factor to improve productivity and income", Ms. Anh Hoai said.

To remove the "low-income trap", Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong - former Director of the Institute of Social Labor Science - said that a comprehensive approach is needed.

First of all, salary policy needs to continue to be adjusted towards approaching the minimum living standard, accurately reflecting living costs, especially in large cities; salary increase cannot be separated from the goal of improving labor productivity. In addition, it is necessary to improve job quality, creating conditions for workers to access positions with higher added value through training, retraining and skills conversion. On the business side, improving the working environment and building a clear career path will help workers see development opportunities and be ready to stay long-term.

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