Japan Press Weekly

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2017 June 28 - July 4 [LABOR]

Japanese businesses pressure Vietnamese government to relax labor regulations

In mid-June, a Vietnamese daily paper reported that in an annual forum held by the Vietnamese government and domestic and foreign companies, the Japan Business Association in Vietnam called for curbing a minimum wage rise and increasing the upper limit on overtime.

According to the news report, the JBAV, representing 1,600 companies operating in the country, noted that an increase in the minimum wage rate surpassed the rise in the inflation rate last year. The Japanese business community insisted that Vietnamese workers’ wages are high compared to wages in neighboring countries and that this would undermine Japanese firms’ international competitiveness.

In addition, the JBAV proposed that the maximum amount of overtime be raised to 600 hours a year from the current 400 hours a year in regard to engineers and workers engaged in new projects and the development of new products.

A number of Japanese businesses are operating in Vietnam as well as in neighboring countries such as China, Thailand, and Malaysia. It is unacceptable for those firms to push their host nations to compete for labor deregulation under the guise of maintaining international competitiveness.