Increasing Overtime Hours per Month to 40 Hours from January 01, 2021

Illustrative image (source: internet)

Overtime remains the period of work outside normal working hours as stipulated by law, collective labor agreements, or labor regulations. However, the Labor Code 2019 stipulates that employers are allowed to use employees for overtime work when fully meeting the following requirements:

a) Must obtain the consent of the employee;

b) Ensure that the employee's overtime does not exceed 50% of the normal working hours in 01 day; in case of applying the normal working hour regulation by week, the total of normal working hours and overtime hours does not exceed 12 hours in 01 day; not exceeding 40 hours in 01 month;

c) Ensure that the employee's overtime does not exceed 200 hours in 01 year, except for the cases stipulated in Clause 3 of this Article.

It can be seen that the overtime hours according to the New Law for employees in 01 month is not more than 40 hours (an increase of 10 hours/month compared to current regulations). Moreover, the Labor Code 2019 also specifies more clearly the cases where employees can be used for up to 300 hours/year, such as production in certain industries, professions, jobs or in the following cases:

- Production, processing and exporting textile, garment, leather, footwear, electronics, agricultural, forestry, marine products;- Production and supply of electricity, telecommunications, oil refining; water supply and drainage;- Cases requiring the settlement of urgent work demanding highly skilled labor that the labor market cannot adequately and promptly supply;- Cases requiring the resolution of urgent work that cannot be delayed due to seasonality, timing of materials, products or to resolve unforeseen work arising from objective factors such as weather, natural disasters, fire, enemy sabotage, lack of electricity, lack of materials, technical malfunctions of the production line;- Other cases as prescribed by the Government of Vietnam.

Furthermore, when organizing overtime up to 300 hours/year in certain industries, the employer must notify in writing the labor-related professional agency under the Provincial People's Committee.

See more regulations in the Labor Code 2019 effective from January 1, 2021.

Thu Ba

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