With workers refusing to accept jobs in industrial parks in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta due to poor salaries and meal, accommodation and healthcare allowances, many employers are struggling to fill vacancies.

workers

Phan Thanh Phi, head of the Long An Province Industrial Zones Authority, said 203 factories operating in 23 industrial parks in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province, would need an additional 30,000 workers next year.

To put their needs into perspective, they employ only 45,500 workers now.

Their failure to increase wages to keep pace with the increasing prices had caused the high attrition of staff, Phi said.

"With their average monthly wage of VND2 million (US$100), the textile and garment and footwear industries have lost the highest number of workers."

Even the food provided to workers was not good enough to enable them to work for eight to 12 hours per day, he admitted.

In Can Tho, industrial parks needed a total of 10,000 workers and the figure would rise next year when more factories open and existing ones expand, the local Industrial Zones Authority said.

The workforce in the delta region was large enough to meet the factories\' needs, but workers found it hard to make ends meet with monthly salaries that average VND1.3-VND2 million, Vo Thanh Hung, its head, said.

Many workers in textile and garment and seafood processing factories quit their jobs to work in HCMC and Dong Nai and Binh Duong Provinces because of higher wages there.

The shortage of workers has also reached alarming levels in Ben Tre and Tien Giang Provinces where workers get an average of VND1.8 million-VND3 million, including overtime, according to industrial zones\' authorities.

To address the labor shortage, firms needed to hike wages and provide better food, accommodation and healthcare, Hung said.