To support enterprises to deal with the labor shortage during the Covid-19 pandemic, on 23 March 2022, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of Vietnam passed Resolution 17 to loosen the overtime limit of employees as compared to the Labor Code 2019 (Resolution 17/2022).

Annual overtime hours

Under Article 107.2(c) of the Labor Code 2019 and Article 61 of Decree 145/2020, the overtime hours of employees is capped at 200 hours per year, except for certain specific cases where the employees can work overtime up to 300 hours/year. Exceptional cases are limited to some production industries, or certain circumstances (e.g. to resolve tasks requiring high expertise or technical skills where the labour market cannot satisfy, or in emergency situations), or other cases allowed by the Government.

Resolution 17/2022 releases this restriction by allowing the employer to reach an agreement with its employees to increase the annual overtime hours up to 300 hours regardless of its industry or circumstances, except where the relevant employees are:

· those aged between 15 and under 18 years old;

· those having mild disabilities with work capacity reduction of at least 51% or employees with severe disabilities or extremely severe disabilities;

· those doing heavy, hazardous, dangerous or extremely heavy, hazardous or dangerous work;

· those being female employees in their 7th month or more of their pregnancy (or the 6th month or more of her pregnancy in case they work in a highland, deep-lying, remote, border, or island area); or

· those being female employees raising a child under 12 months.

The employer is required to notify the labour authority upon organising for employees to work overtime under Resolution 17/2022.

Monthly overtime hours

Under Resolution 17/2022, where an employer is allowed to arrange for employees to work up to 300 hours/year as discussed above, upon having demand and subject to the consent of the employees, they can also arrange for their employees to work overtime up to 60 hours per month. This cap under the Labour Code 2019 is 40 hours only.

Upon arranging for their employees to work overtime, Resolution 17/2022 requires employers to provide more favourable benefits than those prescribed by the Labor Code 2019 to its employees. This is to ensure that the employees have sufficient conditions to recover their health after long working hours.

This post is written by Trinh Phuong Thao and edited by Hoang Thi Thanh Thuy.

Vietnam Business Law