New regulations on fees for labor export will be issued

The Draft is expected to clarify the labour export that has a lot of problems

Clarify fees

The Draft specifies the fees. A contract of labour export must satisfy requirements on fee level as follow: the service fee does not exceed US $ 3,600 per person per a three-year contract (do not collect any additional receipts for the fourth year and fifth year), and does not exceed US $ 1,200 per person per a one-year contract. Labourers must pay fees relating to passport, visa and criminal record (if required).

The enterprises are permitted to collect the mentioned fees after the Japan Government granted temporary residence permit cards to intern trainees and the enterprises signed intern training contracts for intern trainees to Japan. Any prepaid deposits of labourers will be strictly prohibited. In the other hand, the enterprises may receive deposits from labourers in compliance with the Japanese law and is forbidden to collect any fees against the Japanese law on the Technical Intern Training Program.

For Taiwan market, the labor export enterprises may collect fees of laborers before they work in Taiwan such as less than US $ 400 per person per a three-year contract for family nurses and coastal fishermen; less than US$800 per a three-year contract for caregivers of sick and old people in health facilities and nursing homes; no fee for offshore fishermen and seaman; and less than basic monthly salary/ contract year ( US$ 1,500 per a three-year contract). For Saudi Arabia market, the Draft provides that labourers to Saudi Arabia as house cleaners, babysitters, gardeners and family driver from 21 to 47 years are exempted from the brokerage fees. Housemaids must be ensured on training fee, exit fee including air ticket fee, visa fee and brokerage fee for Vietnamese enterprises by employers in Saudi Arabia.

The Draft also stipulates requirements for labor export enterprises, for example, for Taiwan market, the enterprises must hold full training programs on family nurses (for the first exit) according to the provision of Taiwan including: a 90 - hour training course on occupation, a 100 – hour training course on legal knowledge and other necessary knowledge and a 200-hour training course on foreign language.

Enterprises will balance the costs

The publicity and clarification of regulation on fees for labour export in some markets are good news for labourers. Regarding this, Mr. Tong Hai Nam, Deputy Director of Department of Overseas Labor (the Ministry of Labor and Social Invalid Affairs) stated that after ten years of implementing the law on Vietnamese laborers to work abroad under the contracts (effective from 1 July 2007) now begin to arise unsuitable issues, so the Department of Overseas Labor Management proposed the Ministry to submit to the Prime Minister to bring it into the law revision program which is expected to be submitted to the National Assembly in the coming time.

“We are carrying out those solutions to ensure the transparent labour exports”. Mr. Nam said.

However, according to Mr. Phuc Vinh, General Director of Vinh Phuc Human Resource Development Co., Ltd., the regulations on brokerage fee for Taiwan market will plunge labour export enterprises into difficulty because so far the brokerage fees required by Taiwan have been high. "Even from the beginning of the year, our company had to deduct from our brokerage fee to compensate the Taiwan side for maintaining the contract. Although Taiwan is the No. 1 market for labour export enterprises, competition for this market is also difficult, and many export companies arbitrarily raise brokerage fees for their Taiwan to get the contract”, Mr. Vinh said.

Regarding the brokerage fees of the Taiwan market, according to a report by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, over years, the status that labourers have been charged higher fees than those in the regulations has been relatively popular. Early 2012, many labourers had to paid US $ 6,000, or even more than US$ 6,000. This caused by the Taiwanese law not allowing Taiwanese employment service companies to collect brokerage fees, but to be authorised companies receiving foreign workers by Taiwanese employers, these Taiwanese enterprises often require a very high brokerage fee to receive labour for all countries.

Regarding the other specific criteria in the Draft, Mr. Vinh said that the conditions for labour export enterprises wishing to supply labour to the Taiwan market were quite appropriate and have been stipulated in some other documents. Specifically, an enterprise must have at least one marketing staff and one staff in charge of labour management. These staff must have qualifications on the Chinese language at least SHK5 certificate, TOCFL 4 certificate or equivalent certificates and at least one staff in charge of training necessary knowledge with at least one-year experience in sending labourers to Taiwan. According to Mr. Vinh, these are necessary and sufficient conditions for labour export enterprises when supplying labour to the Taiwan market.

About the fee for labor export to Japan, Mr. Dao Xuan Hai, Chairman of the Management Board of LOD Human Resource Development Corporation said that the fee for Japanese market is quite high, if strictly complying the Draft, the enterprises will have to balance quite a lot of other fees, and will also have to work again with the Japanese side for a more appropriate fee.