A low-salary, high-pressure environment is driving many workers at scores of Vietnam-based foreign-invested enterprises to strike or change jobs.

Vietnam Economic Institute head Tran Dinh Thien last week said that the average income of blue-collar workers in foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) was the lowest as compared with companies in the state and domestic private sectors.

“The average monthly salary of FIEs’ blue-collar workers is just VND 1.2 million ($60). This is especially the case in labour-intensive business fields like garment and textile, leather and footwear and wood processing,” Thien told a meeting in Hanoi on the country’s 2010-2020 development strategy.

He argued that to gain such a salary workers had to frequently work under high pressure and with extra time.

Thien quoted statistics of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour’s Worker and Trade Union Institute as showing that only 52 per cent of workers in FIEs worked eight hours per day. Some 6.5 per cent worked over 10 hours a day.

“The government has made salary grade issues clear, but many FIEs have up to 30-40 different salary grades. In many cases, the difference between two consecutive salary grades is only VND10,000 ($0.5).

“Such a difference is meaningless for workers, amid the rocketing market prices,” said Mai Duc Chinh, vice head of Vietnam General Confederation of Labour.

Under the country’s labour regulations, workers would see a minimum salary increase every two years.

“However, statistics show that over 20 per cent of FIEs’ workers do not see such a salary rise. Besides, the bonus, extra pay and social insurance packages remain untransparent.

“FIEs’ failures in inking labour contracts with workers, paying their insurance packages and other allowances are largely responsible for labour disputes and strikes,” Thien claimed.

In early March, 6,000 workers at Japanese motorbike maker Yamaha Company in Hanoi striked to demand a 12 per cent salary rise. During January and February, workers at Malaysia’s.

White Feathers Company, United Kingdom’s Theodore Alexander Company, Japan’s Panasonic Home Appliances Vietnam and Philippine’s Yasufuku Vietnam also striked for a pay rise.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Labour Confederation, there were 21 strikes at the city’s industrial parks during the year’s first two months. This number is equivalent to one-third of strikes in 2010. Tens of strikes occurred in southern Binh Duong province at the same time.

Thien cited a survey conducted by his institute in 2010 on 250 FIEs in Hanoi, Haiphong, Danang, Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City as saying that there had been an uptrend of workers leaving enterprises and this rate occupied 25 per cent of FIEs’ total workers now.

Of job quitters, 73 per cent were manual workers. Over two-thirds of surveyed workers said that they had changed jobs many times, 53 per cent of them said that they had worked for two or three FIEs and 10 per cent had worked for at least four FIEs.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Vietnam is now home to about 4,500 operational FIEs directly employing nearly two million workers.

According to a Vietnam General Confederation of Labour survey of 2,100 labourers in seven cities and provinces’ industrial zones in late November 2010, only 3.9 per cent of the respondents felt satisfied with their salaries while the majority 50.9 per cent being unsatisfied. The remaining 45.2 per cent said the payments were acceptable.