Half of IPs in city offer accommodation benefits
By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – Nearly half of all export processing and industrial zones in HCMC offer boarding houses to workers, according to the city’s government.
At present, the city is home to 10 industrial zones and three export processing zones employing around 260,000 laborers. Six out of that comprising Tan Thuan, Linh Trung 1, Tan Binh, Tan Tao, Hiep Phuoc and Vinh Loc offer workers accommodation benefits.
The city authorities are focusing on developing housing projects for low-income earners so as to improve living standards for manual employees and limit strikes over low benefits.
As of now, the city has 1.4 million square meters of floor space used for building low-cost apartment projects accommodating over 455,000 workers.
The city continues to offer incentives in tax, land use fees, credit loans to developers who are keen on constructing boarding houses, houses for rent serving accommodation demand of workers.
Currently, the policy has lured several enterprises to start building low-cost housing projects for their labor forces. For instance, Nissei Electric Co. is building two five-storey blocks accommodating 1,520 workers.
Palace Co. has developed a boarding house for 1,012 laborers while a six-storey building accommodating 416 workers is under construction by Duc Bon Co.
Also to help ease difficulties for workers, the city’s government has recently proposed the central government to map out management mechanism to ensure that enterprises pay wages to worker in due time.
The city suggests that central authorities take a closer watch on financial capacity of enterprises in a bid to timely detect enterprises facing financial constraints and are unlikely to cover workers’ salaries and social insurance premiums.
HCMC authorities have also sought approval from the central government to auction off the properties of bankrupt companies to pay off salary debts when the firm leaders take flight as recently seen in the city.