The People’s Committee of southern Tra Vinh Province has ordered local competent agencies to review the plan made by a Chinese company to recruit thousands of Chinese workers for a thermal power project in the province.
>> Management of foreign workers in Vietnam tightened The order was given several days after the same committee issued an official letter to approve the plan. Son Thi Anh Hong, deputy chairwoman of the provincial People’s Committee, requested at a meeting with relevant agencies on Monday afternoon that competent agencies should take a look again at the recruitment plan to decide whether it complies with applicable regulations on employing foreigners. The plan must be scrapped if it violates the law, the committee said. The review order came after Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper published an article the same day, questioning the approval of the plan. Before the above meeting, Hong told Tuoi Tre that the approval was given after the plan had been considered by competent government bodies. The recruitment plan was prepared by China Chengda Engineering Co., Ltd., a Chinese contractor, to recruit 2,100 Chinese workers for four years for the province’s Duyen Hai Thermal Power Plant Project. The proposal was submitted to the provincial Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, which then proposed the provincial People’s Committee should approve it, based on the ground that the Chinese contractor could not find qualified Vietnamese workers for the project. Under applicable regulations, unskilled foreign workers are not allowed to be employed in Vietnam. Vietnam only recruits foreign managers, directors, experts, and technical specialists.
But if Vietnamese can meet the standards required for such jobs, they must be recruited in place of foreigners. Duong Quang Ngoc, deputy director of the department, told Tuoi Tre that the Chinese company had sent its recruitment notice to the department and its units in districts and employment service centers across the province. The company would recruit only experts and skilled workers, Ngoc said, citing the notice. But few Vietnamese applied for these positions and only some handed in their portfolios but did not turn up for interviews as scheduled two months after the recruitment notice was issued, Ngoc further explained. Therefore, the company suggested the provincial authorities allow it to recruit Chinese workers, he added.
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