The retirement age for male and female workers will be raised under the revised Labor Code which was approved by Vietnam’s National Assembly (NA) on November 20.

Particularly, under normal working conditions, the pension age will be raised from 60 for men and 55 for women at present to 62 (in 2028) and 60 (in 2035), respectively.

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The revised bill, which sailed through the legislature with 90% approval, prescribes that from 2021, the retirement age for men will be 60 years and three months, while that for women will be 55 years and four months.

The retirement age will then increase by three months for male and four months for female workers every year until it reaches the target.

According to the amended Labor Code, those performing heavy, hazardous and dangerous jobs, or in extremely disadvantaged areas, or having decreased working capacity will be allow to retire earlier than the prescribed age by a maximum of five years.

Meanwhile, highly-skilled workers and other special cases may work for another five years after reaching the pension age.

The legislation also stipulates the public holidays. Accordingly, workers take a day off for New Year, five days for Tet holiday, one day for Victory Day (April 30), one day for May Day, two days for National Day (September 2) and one day for the commemoration of the Hung Kings – the nation’s legendary founders, which falls on the 10th day of the third lunar month. This regulation was approved by 452 delegates (93.58%).

Normal working times will not exceed eight hours a day and 48 hours a week. Meanwhile, overtime will not surpass 300 hours per year for specific industries, jobs and cases.

The Vietnamese government is encouraging employers to set a workweek of 40 hours, according to the document.

The law also states that businesses have to ensure that overtime should not to exceed 200 hours per year.

For workers to work 300 hour overtime a year, enterprises must notify the labor agency of the provincial People's Committee in writing.

As such, the NA decided not to increase the maximum overtime to 400 hours per year as proposed by the drafters.

On break entitlement, employees who work six consecutive hours or more in a day are entitled to a break of at least 30 minutes; those working at night are allowed to a 45 consecutive minute break; for those on shift work, the break time is included in working hours.