NEW GUIDELINES ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAW ON VIETNAMESE WORKERS WORKING ABROAD UNDER CONTRACTS
The Government’s Decree 112/2021/ND-CP (“Decree 112”) promulgating detailed regulations on a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Vietnamese workers working abroad under contracts (Law No. 72/2006/QH11, dated November 29, 2006). Decree 112 shall come into effect on January 1, 2022.
Below are some notable points of this new Decree.
1. New conditions regarding the professional ability of a Service Enterprise
According to Article 10 of the Law on Vietnamese Workers abroad, the professional ability of the enterprise providing the service of labor outsourcing abroad (“Service Enterprise”) shall have an adequate number of professional employees to implement any compulsory fields of work. Chapter III of Decree 112 has detailed the professional requirements for staff in the Service Enterprise sending workers to specific countries such as China, Taiwan, and Japan.
For example, when sending workers to work in Taiwan and Japan, there must be at least one professional staff (having at least one year of experience) engaged in the search and development of foreign labor markets with Chinese language ability of at least HSK5, Japanese at least N2 (JLPT standard) or equivalent.
Service Enterprises must also have at least one permanent professional staff abroad to perform labor-management activities with Chinese language ability of at least HSK5, Japanese at least N2 (JLPT standard), or equivalent and have at least one year of experience in recruiting Vietnamese workers to work in the receiving country.
2. Regulations on Deposit requirement
2.1. Deposit of Service Enterprise to a Bank in Vietnam
The Service Enterprise shall deposit 2,000,000,000 VND (Two billion VND) at a Vietnamese bank or a foreign bank branch licensed and operating in Vietnam. Before Decree 112, the deposit level was 1,000,000,000 (One billion VND) and the Service Enterprise could only deposit at commercial banks licensed to operate in Vietnam (Article 10 of Decree 38/2020/ND-CP).
In addition, there is a new regulation added in Decree 112: Service Enterprises assign tasks to branches to perform service activities of outsourcing Vietnamese workers to work abroad will have to escrow an additional deposit of 500,000,000 VND (Five hundred million VND) for each branch.
2.2. Deposit of Vietnamese worker to the Service Enterprise
The Vietnamese worker’s deposit is used to compensate for any damages caused due to the employee to the Service Enterprise.
The Service Enterprise and workers agree on the amount of deposit, where the deposit shall not exceed the ceiling level specified in Decree 112
2.3. Deposit of Vietnamese worker to the Public Service Providers
The Vietnamese worker’s deposit after agreeing with Public Service Providers is used to compensate for any damages caused by the worker to Public Service Providers under the contract to send Vietnamese workers to work in Vietnam.
This deposit will be refunded after it is fully determined that the worker was not at fault and has not caused any damage to Public Service Providers.
