Public Employee Can Unilaterally Terminate the Contract

Response to Ms. To Anh's inquiry is as follows:

The resolution of resignation for public employees is stipulated in Article 38 of Decree 29/2012/ND-CP dated April 12, 2012, by the Government of Vietnam on the recruitment, utilization, and management of public employees.

Based on the aforementioned regulations, in the case of Ms. Phan Tri To Anh's feedback, if due to job requirements and the agency has not arranged a replacement for the public employee requesting resignation, the agency leadership has issued a document responding to the public employee with the reason for not resolving the resignation yet, and that the resignation will be resolved according to the employee's wish when a replacement is found for the position, this is within their authority and compliant with point d, Clause 2 and point b Clause 3, Article 38 of Decree 29/2012/ND-CP.

However, Clause 4 and points d and e, Clause 5, Article 29 of the Public Employee Law 2010 stipulate that public employees working under an indefinite-term employment contract have the right to unilaterally terminate the contract but must notify in writing to the head of the public service provider at least 45 days in advance; in case the public employee is sick or has an accident and has been treated for six continuous months, they must give notice at least three days in advance.

Public employees working under definite-term employment contracts have the right to unilaterally terminate the contract in cases where: the employee or their family really has difficult circumstances that cannot continue to fulfill the contract; the employee is sick or has an accident and has been treated continuously for three months but their working capacity has not recovered.

Applying this regulation, for public employees who have submitted a resignation request and notified the agency six months in advance but have yet to be resolved, such public employees can choose to terminate their employment contract unilaterally.

According to the Government of Vietnam e-portal

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