consider the influencing factors carefully

Create motivation to improve productivity

According to the Government's Submission, the Government proposed to the National Assembly to fully implement two contents of salary reform in the enterprise sector in accordance with Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW, including: adjusting the regional minimum wage according to the provisions of the Labor Code (increased by 6% applied from July 1, 2024); regulating the salary mechanism for State-owned enterprises (applied from January 1, 2025).

With the motto of implementing salary reform according to Resolution 27-NQ/TW in the public sector in a gradual, cautious, and certain manner, ensuring feasibility and contributing to improving the lives of wage earners, the National Assembly assigned the Government to implement the contents that have met the conditions for implementation, including adjusting the basic salary from the current VND 1.8 million to VND 2.34 million/month (an increase of 30%) from July 1, 2024 (not abolishing the current basic salary and salary coefficient).

For agencies and units that are applying special financial and income mechanisms at the Central level, the National Assembly assigned the Government to direct the implementation of reserving the difference between the salary and additional income in June 2024 of cadres, civil servants and public employees (CBCCVC) and the salary from July 1, 2024 after amending or abolishing the special financial and income mechanisms.

During the period of not amending or abolishing these mechanisms, the monthly salary and additional income will be calculated according to the basic salary of 2.34 million VND/month according to the special mechanism from July 1, 2024, ensuring that it does not exceed the salary and additional income received in June 2024.

At the same time, the Government proposed to adjust pensions, social insurance benefits, preferential benefits for meritorious people and social benefits from July 1, 2024. Specifically, increase pensions and social insurance benefits by 15%; for those receiving pensions before 1995, after adjustment, if the benefit level is lower than 3.2 million VND/month, the adjustment will increase by 0.3 million VND/month, if the benefit level is from 3.2 million VND/month to less than 3.5 million VND/month, the adjustment will be equal to 3.5 million VND/month.

Preferential allowance for meritorious people according to the standard allowance level from 2,055,000 VND to 2,789,000 VND/month (increase of 35.7%); maintain the current correlation of preferential allowance levels for meritorious people compared to the standard allowance level. Social allowance according to the social assistance standard level from 360,000 VND to 500,000 VND/month (increase of 38.9%).

According to the Government's Report, the total funding requirement for adjusting the basic salary increases by 30%, implementing a bonus of 10% of the basic salary fund, adjusting pensions and accumulated allowances for the 3 years 2024 - 2026 increases by 913 trillion VND. The National Assembly has assigned the Government to promptly report to the Central Executive Committee on expanding the scope of using the accumulated salary reform funds of the central and local budgets to spend on adjusting pensions and allowances, social security policies and streamlining the payroll.

Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra affirmed that this is the highest basic salary increase ever, which will contribute to improving the lives of workers and creating motivation to increase productivity. Wage reform must achieve the goal of increasing wages, so it is necessary to closely follow Resolution 27-NQ/TW for calculation. Therefore, the plan decided by the Prime Minister and the Steering Committee for Wage Policy Reform is very wise.

In particular, implementing a very new measure is to allocate 10% of the basic salary fund so that every year the head of the unit has full authority to decide on special bonuses for civil servants and public employees, which will help units have more reward mechanisms and improve the salary and income management mechanism to hire experts, scientists, and talented people to perform the agency's tasks.

Along with this, it is necessary to provide specific and strict guidance on ensuring resources to implement salary reform, including restructuring the organizational structure and streamlining the payroll; and provide unified guidance on salary and income management for each autonomous public service unit or one receiving salaries from the budget.

“Such a salary reform plan is considered optimal, it will basically maintain the legal documents on salaries of the subjects, with current allowances being kept intact and will continue to be reviewed, researched and supplemented. Thus, Resolution 27-NQ/TW will be implemented on a certain, effective, feasible roadmap and meet the expectations of the subjects, no one will be disadvantaged” - Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Tra emphasized.

Salary is enough to cover living expenses, officials will not want to be corrupt

 

In fact, before the salary increase, prices had already increased for a while. Therefore, along with the salary increase, there needs to be a solution to stabilize prices, especially for consumer goods; at the same time, we need to pay attention to the issue of family deductions; if the salary increases by 30%, then family deductions must increase by at least 30%, even up to 50%.

Delegate Ta Van Ha (National Assembly delegation of Quang Nam province)

Particularly concerned about the salary increase of civil servants and public employees and the method of salary increase, National Assembly delegates also expressed concerns and different opinions.

Expressing agreement on the need to reform salaries, allowances and related policies in a careful, step-by-step manner, delegate Pham Van Hoa (National Assembly delegation of Dong Thap province) also said that the total salary fund of civil servants and public employees increased by 30% and the armed forces increased by 51.93%, which is not equal to the salary recipients and is not consistent with the new salary table as planned.

At the same time, when converting from the old salary to the new salary, civil servants and public employees holding leadership positions who are receiving professional and technical salaries with leadership position allowances will be very difficult due to many old salary levels. In addition, there will be a difference in pensions between those who retire before and after July 1, 2024, and the removal of seniority allowances for some specialized civil servants and public employees will cause the new salary to decrease significantly, leading to concerns for civil servants and public employees.

Meanwhile, according to delegate Duong Minh Anh (National Assembly delegation of Hanoi), the solution to adjust the basic salary increase for civil servants, public employees, and armed forces in the public sector from 1.8 million VND to 2.34 million VND and increase the bonus fund by 10% of the basic salary fund, has partly met the expectations of voters, but because the salary reform policy has not been applied, we continue to apply the current salary scale and allowance regime. Therefore, a number of civil servants and public employees in the public sector, including education officials, still have many concerns.

“Since 2013, after the Central Executive Committee issued Resolution 29 on fundamental and comprehensive education reform, many major policies on education reform have put considerable pressure on teachers, but the salary policy only applies Resolution 29, which is that teachers' salaries are given the highest priority in the administrative and career salary scale. After 11 years, this regulation is still on paper. I earnestly request the National Assembly and the Government to study the salary reform policy and institutionalize the Party's policies in laws or sub-law documents on salary policies and professional allowances for teachers,” said delegate Duong Minh Anh.

Concerned about the salary payment method, delegate Nguyen Quang Huan (National Assembly delegation of Binh Duong province) suggested that the Government consider introducing a salary payment formula in the direction that the salary will change accordingly with the GDP increase, which will help officials and civil servants feel secure about their income, stay with their jobs for a long time and also be a way to fight corruption from the beginning. Because when the salary is worthy and enough to support their family, they will be afraid of getting involved in corruption, because they can lose a huge source of income.

A 30% salary increase is the highest in history, which also means that inflation must be well controlled to ensure workers' rights; if not properly handled, it will push up the cost of daily living, which is a problem for the Government, the Ministry of Finance and relevant ministries to focus on solving. The Government will assign the Central Economic Committee to reassess the difficulties in implementing Resolution 27-NQ/TW, after which the Executive Committee will give opinions for further implementation.

Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/cai-cach-tien-luong-tinh-ky-nhung-yeu-to-tac-dong.html