Garment and textile employers are weighing up potential changes in how they deal with foreign workers, photo Le Toan

The draft decree amending and supplementing Decree No.152/2020/ND-CP on regulations for foreigners working in Vietnam proposes two key options.

The first is allowing municipal and provincial departments of labour, invalids, and social affairs in localities to manage foreign labourers, including granting work permits, while the second option is assigning local people’s committees to carry out this management.

The draft aims to create improvements for agencies, organisations, and enterprises to recruit foreign workers with high professional and technical qualifications as well as experience for positions that Vietnamese workers have not been able to undertake.

At present, the management of foreign employees is subject to both local departments of labour, invalids, and social affairs and local management authorities of industrial zones (IZs) and economic zones.

For example, last year, Hanoi Department of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs issued 6,000 work permits and Hanoi Industrial Zones Management Authority issued 1,130. The figures in the northern port city of Haiphong are 5,500 and 4,700, respectively, and in the northern province of Bac Ninh the figures are 1,300 and 1,800, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA).

The existing model for managing foreign workers and granting permits is causing difficulties for recruitment, and a unified agency is being suggested to oversee this job.

According to the MoLISA, the advantage of the first option is to ensure unified state management and promote decentralisation so that employers have only to go to one agency in a locality to apply for foreign work permits.

In the second option, assigning municipal and provincial people’s committees to manage foreign labourers may not unify the state management of recruitment if the committees want to authorise another agency to manage non-Vietnamese workers.

Le Thi Hong Minh, a representative of Coway Vina Co. Ltd., said, “The assignment of local departments of labour, invalids, and social affairs to manage foreign workers in a locality will help to unify regulations and would be convenient for work permit applications, saving both time and costs for foreign workers.”

However, union chairman at a shoe manufacturer in the southern province of Dong Nai told VIR, “At present, being authorised by local people’s committees, local management authorities of IZs and economic zones are responsible for granting work permits. The entire procedure has been smooth for us, so we do not think it is necessary to change this provision.”

Currently, more than 60 management authorities of IZs and economic zones, concentrated in the bigger cities and provinces, have been tasked with the granting of work permits for foreign employees.