Casual workers may return to countryside

Many casual workers might lose their jobs in cities next year, as enterprises felt the effects of the global financial crisis, warned director of the Institute of Labour and Society Nguyen Lan Huong from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Huong delivered the warning to representatives at a conference held recently in Ha Noi to evaluate the impact of the global turmoil on Viet Nam’s agriculture and rural areas.

Along with the warning, however, Huong also delivered a message of hope, saying the economic drag would be only temporary. She said that while labourers would temporarily return home because of the work shortage, they would likely come back to the cities because there was even less work in rural areas.

Director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development Dang Kim Son said the country’s agriculture sector lacked the necessary policies to deal with the economic crisis. As demand drops, so would the number of jobs in rural areas.

Unfortunately, even in rural areas farmers were also struggling, after one year of price hikes in input materials, and unstable outlets, said Son.

On the conference’s sidelines, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Luong Le Phuong said the global crisis would have its impact on enterprises until end of next year, and that it would be more challenging to meet export quotas than initially thought.

Phuong said that if there was no "medicine" strong enough, a number of enterprises would likely face bankruptcy. He also commented on the wave of labourers moving from urban to rural area.

The official stressed that it was necessary to track unemployed labourers moving out of urban areas, so that they could be trained to work in rural regions.

Homecoming

The situation comes about after a mass of farmers migrated to urban areas because of low income from the unstable agricultural production. Costs of education and health care, production and other fees have been increasing, forcing farmers to leave their homelands to earn a living in urban areas.

"Who can leave their paddy fields, which are their only means of support? But at the same time, who can stay at their paddy fields where their production is not enough to earn a living?" said Dang Nguyen Anh from the Viet Nam Institute of Social Sciences.

A survey in Vinh Long Province’s Binh Ninh Commune by the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development showed that more than 34 per cent of people had left their homes to work in urban areas, and that just 47 per cent of them had stable jobs.

The survey also found that casual labourers in cities returned home when the country’s economy was down.

"If manual labourers stay in cities without homes, income or marketable skills, how can they maintain a living? It’s natural that they would return home," said the director of the Rural Development Centre Vu Trong Binh.

"This move is necessary to help reduce inflation and the unemployment rate in urban areas."

Binh noted that the crisis was an opportunity to re-structure the economy, improve the banking system, food safety and hygiene and quality of agricultural produce.

This crisis would also help restructure labour forces in both rural and urban areas, according to Binh.

Source: VietNamNews