Dong Thap province was able to send some 2,000 workers abroad this year and is targeting to send as many as 20,500 workers overseas by 2010. The province has set up a center for employment services, which is mandated to recruit only qualified workers and to provide job training for successful job applicants. A labor export assistance fund was also established in September to provide loans to poor workers. Authorized labor agencies in the province are now targeting the big labor markets, particularly Taiwan, Korea and Japan, where Vietnamese workers may get higher wages.
10 ethnic Vietnamese return to Central Highlands
According to the UNHCR office in Hanoi, 10 ethnic minority Vietnamese who fled to Cambodia last August had returned to the Central Highlands in the first week of November. Local authorities have extended some assistance to the returnees, who allegedly admitted being misled into crossing into Cambodia.
For the first time, the US has granted guest worker visas to 10 Vietnamese workers. These laborers have been hired to work in Hawaii for Global Horizons Incorporated, an agricultural processing group, for one year. The workers would reportedly be paid $9.75 an hour and are expected to work 60 hours a week harvesting macadamia and making cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.
The government has decreed in August that migrants from the provinces, who have been living in Vietnam’s major cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, may be eligible for permanent residence in the cities if they satisfy certain criteria. These include having lived in the city for at least three consecutive years, owning a house or at least residing in a rented house, and a written housing confirmation from local authorities. According to an official from Ho Chi Minh City Police’s social security agency, out of more than 1,000 applications for permanent residential status received by his office, only 26 were found to have complied with all the requirements. Applicants, on the other hand, complained about inconsistencies in the processing of applications and the implementation of the decree.
Sources: “Dong Thap province to export more labour," Vietnam Economy, 3 November 2005; VNA, “More ethnic minority people voluntarily return to Vietnam," Thanh Nien News, 9 November 2005; “Dong Thap to send 20,500 local workers abroad," Vietnam Economy, 14 November 2005; “Vietnamese guest workers look forward to better living conditions," Vietnam Economy, 14 November 2005; “City resident status for migrant workers moving at a snail’s pace," Thanh Nien News, 15 November 2005