Overseas workers save $15,000 in three years

HA NOI – Overseas contract workers from Viet Nam return home with up to $15,000 each in savings after three years, statistics show.

The details on contract workers returning from Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea in 2010-11 were released yesterday in a report by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

Around 90% of the contract workers returned home with savings, the report said. Those with the biggest bank balances came from Japan and South Korea – each employee having accumulated VND243 million ($11,600) to VND312 million (US$15,000) after three years.

Employees mainly used their savings to pay debts, arising before or after they went to work abroad, or to build or repair houses.

Only 8 per cent of the savings were used to do business or to continue studying or training.

The report also showed about 80 per cent of returning contract workers got jobs on returning to Viet Nam but the jobs were mostly manual labour.

Around 200,000 Vietnamese workers were currently contracted in Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, accounting for 40 per cent of the total of employees working in 40 countries world-wide. – VNS