It was nearly 7 p.m. on September 26 when some divisions in HCMC Justice Department were still bright. Inside, leaders and staff were reading and handling documents.
Work volume at the agency increased by 9-63 percent in the first half this year but a number of staff have quited.
Deputy director of the agency Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh says that many quitters are qualified and well meet work requirements so their leave has affected the agency’s operation. Fourteen positions at the agency are vacant now.
Human reource shortage has also raised difficulites for the court industry.
Tribunal president of HCMC People’s Court Ung Thi Xuan Huong said that since 2016 the number of complex cases has kept moving up hitting 56,000 in 2016, 57,000 in 2017 and 49,000 in the first half this year.
Some cases saw up to 70-80 defendants and 200 involved such as Pham Cong Danh case.
The number of cases in HCMC accounts for one fourth of the country but the city has faced shortage of both judges and clerks.
Employees of HCMC Social Insurance Agency must take documents home to handle until 9 p.m. With the shortage of 69 people, the agency is managing nearly 70,000 companies and organizations with over 2.2 million workers.
Most employees must work overtime by 100 hours a year and some see it up to 200 hours a year, the highest level according to the law. Huge workload and low wage have sent many to leave, said director of HCMC Social Insurance Agency Phan Van Men.
Mr. Huynh Viet Hung, head of District 8’s Internal Affairs Department, said that the district is short of 30 public servants and officials mainly in fields such as finance-accounting, office-statistics, culture-society and justice-civil status.
Ms. Duong Thi Uyen Chi, head of Binh Chanh District’s Internal Affairs, said that the district is short of 630 employees.
HCMC recruited only 1,760 teachers out of the total need of 2,400 teachers last year. Notably, the city is now short of 11,00 nursery teachers and will need an extra of 36,500 by 2020.
Unmeasurable brain drain
Agencies are aware of brain drain from the specific number of quitters but it is unmeasurable to those who take on a second job to increase income besides their main job. That cause them half hearted and unenthusiatic to perform their duty.
Ms. Nguyen Thi L is teacher of a primary school in District 8. With 15 year seniority, her salary is only VND6 million a month. Not quitting, she chose to work overtime at private school at the weekend.
Besides working overtime, many teachers have taken on a second job or run their own business such as online goods sale to improve income.
Talking about solutions to boost creativeness in HCMC, former standing deputy secretary of HCMC Party Committee Pham Chanh Truc said that if the situation in which officials and public servants do this job but live by another job is popular, their organizations will be tilted, twisted and unstable, operate inefficiently and might get mistakes.
Besides brain drain, brain waste has also been a problem. Many public servants neither use much grey matter nor make full responsibility in their work, resulting in low working efficiency.
Director of HCMC Department of Labor, Invalid and Social Affairs Le Minh Tan said that 25 percent employees of the agency are working inefficiently.
