Industrial hub Dong Nai encourages workers to stay back for Tet

Provincial authorities told the Labor Union and management boards of industrial zones to call on workers to stay back this Lunar New Year holiday, which will last for over a week early next month, Nguyen Son Hung, Dong Nai deputy chairman, said Monday.

The latest Covid-19 wave has remained complex across the country, and with laborers moving from place to place, the risk of them getting infected and spreading the virus to others is high.

In such cases, new outbreaks are likely to occur and affect the operation of local businesses, said Hung.

"We will encourage them to stay but if they choose to return home for the holiday, authorities will create facilitating conditions, requesting bus operators to comply with all measures for Covid-19 prevention," he said.

Tang Quoc Lap, deputy chairman of Dong Nai Labor Union, said unions at all levels will not give bus tickets or organize free bus trips to bring workers back to their hometowns like in previous years.

On the other hand, the province will focus all resources on supporting laborers staying back for Tet and those facing financial difficulties and having lost their jobs during the pandemic. It will extract VND20 billion ($882,500) from its budget for those purposes.

The province’s Labor Union will give each of 800,000 laborers VND300,000 in cash.

Dong Nai bordering Ho Chi Minh City is one of Vietnam’s major industrial hubs. It has more than 1.2 million workers in industrial zones, with nearly 60 percent migrant workers.

The province was one of the localities hit hardest by the latest coronavirus infection wave and was put under the government’s strictest social distancing rule from July 9 to Oct. 1, during which many people had lost their jobs.

Unofficial surveys have revealed many migrant workers in both Dong Nai and Binh Duong Province, which also borders HCMC, have decided to stay back this Tet to save money.