At an economic forum last Thursday held in Hanoi, attendees complained about difficulties in obtaining work permits for their employees due to “stringent” and “unreasonable” requirements that would make it impossible even for the likes of Bill Gates to procure one.
Baker & McKenzie’s Fred Burke, speaking at the Mid-term Vietnam Business Forum 2014 in Hanoi said that one of his foreign employees had failed to get a work permit in Ho Chi Minh City, even with three years of experience in his field and having graduated from a top U.S. university, reports Tuoi Tre.
Current regulation stipulate that foreign workers must have at least five years of work experience in addition to four years of university education.
Burke said that even Bill Gates would be unable to secure a work permit in Vietnam and suggested workers only need meet one of these two above criteria to be eligible to obtain one.
These sentiments were echoed by other businesspeople who complained that they are unable to employ foreign staff that are necessary to complete key projects.
Others suggested that foreign English teachers “should have their internationally recognized language teaching certificates accepted, instead of the five years of experience and four years of university education.”
Multinational companies that bring in foreign workers for a few days to help train their local counterparts said that those on short stays should be exempt from the process.
These concerns were raised at the Vietnam Business Forum which is hosted by the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam and seeks to facilitate an “ongoing policy dialogue between the Vietnamese government and the business community.”
While it seems like Vietnam’s strict work permit regulations were created to restrict the use of industrial laborers from aboard, they are having serious ramifications of foreign owned businesses. Perhaps even worse, they are restricting experts, who can train local staff, from entering the country.
Given the controversy surrounding them, it will be interesting to see how long these regulations last.
[Tuoi Tre // Photo via Thomas Hawk]
