National Assembly solves the problem of increasing basic salary by 30% from July 1

On the afternoon of June 25, discussing in groups about the contents of salary reform; adjusting pensions, social insurance benefits, preferential benefits for meritorious people and social benefits from July 1, 2024, many delegates said that adjusting the basic salary from 1.8 million VND/month to 2.34 million VND/month is a remarkable increase in the process of salary adjustment, contributing to improving and enhancing the lives of wage earners, creating motivation to improve labor productivity and work efficiency.

There are solutions to limit the negative impacts that reduce the significance of salary increases.

According to Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Thanh, the Party and State really want to deeply reform the wage policy so that workers can wholeheartedly devote themselves to their work. Paying wages based on job position is a very new idea, and it will have to be implemented eventually, but at this time there are still many shortcomings and it cannot be implemented yet. Therefore, she agrees with the Government's proposal to adjust wages, pensions, social insurance benefits, preferential allowances for meritorious people, and social benefits from July 1.

Standing member of the Finance and Budget Committee Le Minh Nam also agreed with the viewpoint of implementing salary reform and related policies according to a roadmap, step by step, ensuring feasibility, efficiency, and suitability with the budget's ability to pay. To achieve the goal of increasing salaries this time to improve the lives of salary earners, Mr. Nam suggested that the Government pay attention to controlling inflation.

“When the National Assembly approves this salary increase, the Government needs to have solutions to limit negative impacts, especially to minimize the possibility that salary increases will also increase prices, reducing the significance of the salary increase,” Mr. Nam emphasized.

He also recommended strict implementation of the provisions of the Price Law, related to price declaration, transparent disclosure of price information, to avoid speculation, profiteering or improper implementation of price regulations. For any item that cannot be intervened by legal tools and must operate according to market mechanisms, the State also needs to have policies. It is necessary to inspect and check to control the implementation of price regulations.

Principals of many autonomous schools have an average income of 80 million VND/month.

Analyzing the problem of salary reform is very complicated, requiring a review of work processes, rearrangement of job positions, essentially restructuring work processes and restructuring the organization, delegate Le Quan (Hanoi) said that while that goal has not been achieved, temporarily solving the 30% increase from July 1 is very important.

He acknowledged the progress in implementing this policy, including the implementation of 4/6 policies of salary reform for the public sector, increasing subsidies for those with incomes lower than 3.2 million VND/month (adjusted up 0.3 million VND/month), below 3.5 million VND/month, accessing the minimum wage and ensuring their lives.

“This time we solve the common problem, solving the lower limit which is low-income people and those who need attention to improve their lives, social security and welfare,” Mr. Quan said.

However, the Director of Hanoi National University also suggested considering the public service units, especially autonomous public service units and public service units in the fields of university, college and health education.

He said that since last year, Hanoi National University has paid salaries according to job positions and rearranged job positions.

“A good specialist in my agency can currently earn 30-40% more than the average,” said the Hanoi delegate.

According to him, if possible, this Resolution should allow any units or regions that have established job positions to apply it immediately. This is very important, because in reality, increasing the basic salary to 2.34 million VND will invisibly increase all basic salaries and hardware, while the total salary fund will not increase for public service units.

“The total salary fund is not funded by the budget, so the current total salary fund without any input revenue will not increase. So, this time the basic salary is increased by 30%, this salary is in the hardware and so the part we evaluate to pay according to the capacity results and pay according to the work performance, the level of completion of the staff is lacking resources, or the general problem is to rebalance,” Mr. Quan analyzed.

He said that implementing salary payment based on job position for the whole system is difficult, but for public service units, especially public service units in the fields of education and health, if it can be implemented based on job position, it will be much better.

The evidence given by the Director of Hanoi National University is that according to the old salary, the position of deputy head of department has a position allowance coefficient of 0.7, but with this new salary reform, the income increases to 7.0 and thus there is a huge gap compared to specialists.

Reforming by job position creates flexibility, a position like department head now has a total monthly income of about 28-29 million VND, ensuring they have very good motivation to work.

The salaries of principals of schools in Hanoi National University are much higher, due to different sources of income. Principals of many autonomous schools have an average monthly income of about 80 million VND.

“Therefore, adjusting the basic salary for us is unchanged, because the hardware is not very large. For units without revenue, it is more difficult. I still recommend that units without revenue have a budget solution in the project. For units with revenue autonomy, it is better to allow the unit to autonomously build a salary scale according to job position,” said delegate Le Quan.

Government ensures resources for wage reform

At the meeting, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that the adjustment of the basic salary to increase by 30%; the adjustment of pensions, social insurance benefits, preferential benefits for people with meritorious services and social benefits will affect over 50 million people. Therefore, the total source is very large.

In the initial plan implemented according to Resolution 27, the Government calculated the total budget requirement for salary increase for 3 years (2024-2026) at about 760,000 billion VND, an average increase of more than 20%. However, when adjusting the basic salary, it increased by 30%, along with 10% bonus in the total basic salary fund and related policies, bringing the total increase to 913.3 trillion VND. This figure increased compared to the plan reported to the National Assembly at the 6th Session of 127 trillion VND.

Therefore, the Government proposes to supplement the source for salary reform and related policies in 2024 and the following years. The Government can guarantee this source.

According to Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra, the Government has so far accumulated 680 trillion VND. In the remaining two years, when there are signs of positive economic recovery along with many solutions to increase revenue, the Government will strive to ensure sources of salary reform to implement the overall program. Along with that, it is necessary to control inflation, because currently there is a mentality that if salaries increase, prices will show signs of increasing.

The government is trying to control inflation at 4-4.5%. The government has drawn up detailed scenarios, issued resolutions to both promote economic growth and control inflation, stabilize the macro economy, and many telegrams requesting early initiative. From there, it ensures the value of salary increases for related subjects.

However, the head of the home affairs sector also emphasized that the journey after 2026 must have very drastic and specific solutions, saving expenses, increasing revenue, reporting to competent authorities to supplement Resolution 27 to implement salary reform synchronously, specifically, and fully.

She also said that increasing the basic salary is the best possible solution, the general spirit is to create a sense of satisfaction and try to spread this spirit to motivate civil servants, public employees and workers to make greater efforts, complete political tasks well, promote socio-economic development of the locality and the country.

Also in the afternoon session, giving opinions on the plan to extend the repayment of the refinancing loan under Resolution No. 135 for Vietnam Airlines Corporation (VNA), delegates agreed with the necessity of extending the repayment of this loan to remove difficulties for VNA; agreed with the Government's proposal to allow the State Bank to automatically extend the repayment period 3 times at the due date for the remaining refinancing debt of credit institutions that are lending to VNA to supplement capital for production and business activities.

In an urgent situation as reported by the Government, using bank credit capital can immediately resolve the immediate difficulties for VNA. This plan helps balance cash flow as well as provide time for the Corporation to restructure its operations comprehensively.