Hanoi (VNA)ꦺ – After a year full of difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many enterprises are still trying to provide their workers with rewards and gifts for the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival, to encourage their spirit and enhance bonds with the enterprises, helping to quickly restore production and maintain jobs and incomes for their employees. 

Their efforts are all the more significant in the context of a shortage of labour in many enterprises.  

Accelerating production toward recovery 

Workers at Song Phuong Company are working round the clock to fill orders for Tet and meet the time of delivery, in accordance with signed contracts.  This is also the busiest period at the company since the fourth wave of COVID-19.  Nguyen Thi Phuong, director of the Song Phuong Production and Trade Joint Stock Company (JSC) in Hanoi, said that due to COVID-19 impacts, her company, like others, has to adjust its production plan constantly to adapt to the new situation.  For Song Phuong, to ensure jobs and incomes for 50 employees, the company has adjusted its production procedures to meet epidemic prevention rules.  “Although there are many orders and our production activities have gradually stabilized, the labour shortage has affected our production plan. Therefore, our company is focusing on export orders,” Phuong said.  According to Tran Nhu Tung, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Thanh Cong Textile Garment - Investment - Trading JSC, despite improvement in production progress and workers’ return to work, rising costs of input materials are affecting the company’s profits.  “There are many orders, but our company cannot accept them because we are not sure about labour supply,” he said. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, enterprises actually operated for just more than six months in 2021 due to COVID-19.  However, the business community has managed to overcome these difficulties, which has contributed to economic growth, which can be seen in a 4.8 percent increase in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The added value of the industrial sector rose by 4.82 percent, compared to 3.36 percent in the same period last year, and higher than the overall growth rate of the economy (2.58 percent).

Leaving no one behind 

The contingent of workers plays an important role in the development of enterprises and the overall economy. For this reason, many enterprises have been giving support to their workers in many forms, from material to spiritual. Nguyen Van Thoi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the TNG Investment and Trading JSC, said on the occasion of the upcoming Tet, besides salary, each worker of the company will also receive bonuses equivalent to between one and a half and two months' salary, equivalent to 13-15 million VND.  Leaders of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Trade Union said enterprises in the sector all try to grant Tet bonuses equivalent to at least one month’s salary to their workers. Those who have seen a good recovery with many orders in the last quarter of 2021 could give as much as one and a half to two months’ salary.  The union’s statistics show over 35,000 workers in the textile-garment industry had to stop working for between two and two and a half months due to lockdowns prompted by the pandemic or their employers’ suspension of operation, resulting in reduced income.  Enterprises also had to shoulder many additional costs in pandemic prevention, severance pay, the organisation of the three “on-site” operation model, treatment and quarantine for infected workers.  Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam Textile and Garment Trade Union Pham Thi Thanh Tam said the union has provided support worth over 39.4 billion VND to enterprises and workers in the industry. The trade union plans to spend 3 billion VND on Tet support for workers (double the amount for Tet in 2021), with priority given to those in enterprises hard hit by COVID-19.  “The trade union plans to hire coaches or subsidise travel costs for workers to return to their home town on the occasion of Tet. We will also hold Tet events for those who do not return to their home village, with a budget of around 1 trillion VND, so that no one is excluded from the joy of Tet,” Tam said.    With the great efforts of enterprises, the textile-garment sector has managed to maintain good growth in 2021, bringing home 39 billion USD in export revenue, up 11.2 percent from 2020 and 0.3 percent from 2019.  The achievement also helps Vietnam keep its place among the top three exporters of textile and garments in the world./.