These basic expenses cover food and housing, electricity and water supplies, telephone bills, clothes and footwear, essential medicines and some private external affairs. The institute’s director Dang Quang Dieu said the new minimum salaries adopted by the government in October this year, ranging from VND1.4-2 million ($70-100) depending on geographic areas, could cover just 56.7-65.7 per cent of the living costs of foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs)’ workers.

The survey indicated that although the real gross monthly incomes of workers in FIEs were about 30 per cent higher than the minimum wages, more than one-third of the workers said they could not afford to cover the cost of living while 44.7 per cent said they had to spend sparingly. Some 18 per cent said they just earned a living and only less than 2 per cent of the FIEs’ employees said they could save a part of their monthly earnings.

The survey further pointed out that most of Vietnamese workers in FIEs were struggling with spiralling inflation. Vietnam’s on-year inflation accelerated to 21.59 per cent in October, the highest in Asia, posing a potential problem of job jumping at low payers.

The survey revealed 39.6 per cent of workers at FIEs were not satisfied with their current jobs and wanted to find new employers for higher pays. Only 4.8 per cent of FIEs’ employees said they felt satisfied. “This means many manufacturers are facing labour unrest as workers do not want to dedicate themselves to employers in the long term,” said Dieu.