The Productivity Paradox
For years, foreign direct investment (FDI) companies operating in Vietnam have quietly proven that a five-day, 40-hour work week is not a luxury benefit but a basic management standard. These firms phased out Saturday work long ago, operating with stable systems, strong discipline, and sustained productivity. Yet domestic businesses continue to insist they cannot afford such schedules, claiming they are still struggling to compete. This stark divide reveals a fundamental misconception about how economic value is created. Productivity is measured by value generated per hour worked, not by the number of hours spent at a desk. When working hours become the denominator in this equation, simply adding more hours does not increase the quotient. In many Vietnamese enterprises, long hours serve as compensation for low efficiency rather than a driver of growth. When labor remains relatively inexpensive and abundant, businesses often delay investments in automation, machinery, and digital systems. Output targets are met by adding shifts or working extra days instead of rethinking how work is performed. Over time, this approach constrains productivity growth across the wider economy, trapping workers in cycles of exhaustion while yielding diminishing returns.
A Global Shift, A Local Standstill
While Vietnam debates whether to reduce private-sector working hours from 48 to 40 per week, much of the world has already moved beyond this threshold. Luxembourg, the most productive country globally, maintains an average work week of just 29 hours. Mexico, which leads OECD rankings for longest working hours at 2,226 hours annually while suffering the lowest labor productivity, recently approved legislation to gradually reduce its workweek from 48 to 40 hours by 2030. The United Kingdom has completed large-scale trials of four-day workweeks, with 92% of participating companies choosing to maintain reduced hours after reporting improved productivity and employee well-being. Microsoft Japan reported a 40% boost in productivity during its four-day workweek pilot in 2019, while Iceland conducted successful trials between 2015 and 2019 that led to nearly 90% of the workforce gaining the right to request shorter hours. The historical trajectory is clear. The 40-hour standard itself emerged from early 20th-century labor movements and industrial innovation. Henry Ford popularized the five-day, 40-hour week in 1926 after discovering that working more yielded only small, short-lived productivity increases. The United States enshrined this standard in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 after decades of labor activism. Yet in Vietnam, the discussion remains stuck at the starting line. The global conversation has shifted from extending hours as risk avoidance to improving efficiency and outcomes, asking how the same work can be completed in less time. Vietnam, however, continues to treat longer hours as a competitive advantage rather than a developmental limitation.
The Human Cost of Long Hours
The prevailing 48-hour work week in Vietnam, often extended further by mandatory overtime, extracts a heavy toll on worker health and safety. Research by the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs indicates that workplace accidents in labor-intensive sectors occur most frequently at the end of long shifts or during heavy overtime periods when concentration drops. Workers who regularly log 40 to 50 hours of overtime per month show significantly higher rates of chronic fatigue, headaches, and reduced focus than those with standard schedules, increasing the likelihood of safety violations and operational errors. Le Van Trinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Occupational Safety and Health Science and Technology, has emphasized that working time and rest time are basic labor rights, not employee benefits. He compares labor to farmland that must be allowed to recover in order to remain productive. Surveys in industrial zones reveal that many workers accept these long hours to maintain income, often at the expense of their health, family life, and recovery time. During peak production periods, especially toward year-end, employees may work up to 16 hours daily for weeks on end. One factory worker in Ho Chi Minh City described his schedule: I work 12 hours a day, sometimes up to 16. By the time I get home, my children are already asleep.
Working time and rest time are basic labor rights, not employee benefits. Labor is like farmland that must be allowed to recover in order to remain productive.
Beyond immediate health impacts, the long-hour culture suppresses domestic consumption, creating a paradox where workers are too exhausted to spend the money they earn. Vietnam does not lack supply in consumer goods, tourism, or services. The constraint is demand, driven not solely by low incomes but by workers lacking the time and energy to consume. Weekends are spent catching up on sleep rather than traveling, shopping, or accessing healthcare. Money that could circulate through the economy instead sits idle or flows into savings and speculative channels, stifling the domestic demand necessary for sustainable growth.
Why Change Feels Impossible
Despite the clear benefits of shorter hours, both employers and workers express deep reservations about transitioning to a 40-hour standard. Manufacturers fear losing competitive edge. Nguyen Xuan Duong, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, warns that the industry faces intense pressure from rising minimum wages and additional public holidays. He notes that textile producers often face sharp production peaks toward year-end, and reducing standard working hours would force greater reliance on overtime, driving up labor costs while remaining constrained by legal overtime limits. Late deliveries could damage relationships with international buyers. Cao Huu Hieu, General Director of the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, echoes this concern, stating that wages have increased faster than productivity in Vietnam, and further reductions in working hours would threaten enterprise survival. Workers themselves often oppose shorter hours due to income fears. Many depend heavily on overtime pay to survive. Tran Thi Yen, a factory worker in Ninh Binh Province, earns approximately VND6.5 million monthly for an eight-hour day, but with regular overtime, her income reaches nearly VND10 million. She worries that reducing weekly hours without raising base pay would drop her earnings to VND6 million, threatening her livelihood. This creates a vicious cycle where workers need overtime to survive, but overtime degrades their health and productivity, requiring yet more hours to maintain output.
Lessons From Abroad
International experience offers both promise and caution. Mexico provides a relevant parallel as another developing economy with long working hours. Its recent Senate approval of a 40-hour workweek includes a gradual implementation plan, reducing hours by two per year until 2030 to allow businesses time to adapt. This phased approach may offer a template for Vietnam, where former Deputy Minister of Labor Pham Minh Huan suggests 2030 as a more realistic timeline for implementation. The UK’s extensive four-day workweek trials demonstrated significant success, with companies reporting reduced burnout (71%), decreased absenteeism (65%), and stable or increased revenue (1.4% average growth) despite reduced hours. However, the trials also revealed sectoral limitations. Customer-facing businesses and manufacturing operations faced staffing challenges. Mark Roderick, managing director of an engineering supplies company in Gloucester, abandoned the trial after two months because his firm was already short-staffed and could not afford to give employees one day off weekly. Workers ended up with nine extreme workdays instead of ten normal ones, leading to exhaustion. For businesses requiring physical presence around the clock, such as retail or manufacturing, compressed schedules require either additional hiring or increased intensity that can negate the benefits of rest.
Microsoft Japan’s 2019 pilot offers a different model. By implementing a four-day week with strict rules, 30-minute meeting limits, and remote communication, the company achieved a 40% productivity increase while electricity consumption dropped 23%. The key difference was intentional redesign of work processes rather than simply cutting hours. Iceland’s trials between 2015 and 2019 involved 2,500 workers across various sectors, demonstrating that with proper planning, productivity could be maintained or improved while worker well-being increased significantly.
Technology and the Time Trap
Recent advances in artificial intelligence and automation have fundamentally altered the calculus of working time. Tasks that once required hours, such as reporting, data aggregation, preliminary analysis, or drafting documents, can now be completed in minutes. Microsoft research reveals that the modern workday has become infinite for many knowledge workers, with 40% of users checking email by 6 am, meetings after 8 pm up 16% year-over-year, and weekend work increasingly common. Despite technological capacity to reduce workloads, the saved time is often absorbed by expanded communication demands rather than rest or efficiency gains. The average worker receives 117 emails daily and 153 Teams messages per weekday, with interruptions occurring every two minutes. This fragmentation means that simply maintaining long hours wastes the benefits of technological progress. Parkinson’s Law, the observation that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion, suggests that without structural changes, AI will accelerate a broken system rather than fix it. The question is not whether technology enables shorter hours, but whether businesses will reorganize workflows to capture these gains. When working time is strictly limited, each hour becomes more valuable, encouraging streamlining of operations, reorganization of workflows, and serious investment in technology. Employees tend to work with greater focus rather than measuring contribution by time spent physically present.
The Path Forward
Reducing Vietnam’s standard workweek requires more than legislative decree. It demands a comprehensive roadmap addressing productivity, wages, and business transition costs. Labor expert Pham Thi Thu Lan argues that shorter hours remain inevitable as Vietnam shifts from a growth model based on labor quantity to one driven by quality and productivity. However, she cautions that reducing hours would force enterprises to reorganize production, invest in technology, improve management, and upgrade workforce skills, all of which raise costs in the short term. Policymakers must carefully assess weekly hour thresholds, implementation timelines, and supporting policies for skills development. Nguyen Huy Khanh, Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Confederation of Labor, proposes revising minimum hourly wage regulations. If the state promotes a 40-hour workweek, monthly working time would fall to 160 hours. Authorities could then calculate the minimum hourly wage by dividing the monthly minimum wage by 160 hours, ensuring fair pay based on productivity rather than time served. Le Van Trinh has called for a legally binding roadmap rather than voluntary targets, with clear phases moving from 48 to 44 hours, then eventually to 40 hours. He emphasizes that without corresponding productivity gains, rising labor costs could erode Vietnamese business competitiveness. The textile and garment industry, which currently benefits from higher overtime limits (300 hours annually compared to 200 in other sectors), would require particular attention to transition planning. The fundamental challenge is changing the mindset that values presence over performance. As global trials demonstrate, shorter workweeks succeed when companies redesign processes, eliminate low-value meetings, and focus on output rather than hours. For Vietnam, the question is not whether a 40-hour week is too short, but why, after many years, productivity challenges are still addressed by extending working hours rather than by improving how work is organized and performed.
Key Points
- Foreign companies in Vietnam have successfully operated 40-hour weeks for years, disproving claims that domestic firms cannot afford shorter hours
- Vietnam’s 48-hour standard exceeds the 40-hour norm established in most developed economies nearly a century ago, while global leaders like Luxembourg operate on 29-hour weeks
- Workers logging 40-50 hours of monthly overtime show significantly higher rates of chronic fatigue and workplace accidents, particularly in labor-intensive industries
- Long working hours suppress domestic consumption as exhausted workers lack time and energy to spend, creating a drag on economic growth
- Both employers and workers resist change due to fears of lost competitiveness and reduced income, despite evidence that productivity gains can offset shorter hours
- International trials show 92% of companies maintaining reduced hours after experiencing improved productivity and employee well-being
- Artificial intelligence and automation reduce workloads significantly, but without structural reform, saved time is absorbed by expanded communication rather than efficiency gains
- Experts recommend a gradual roadmap to 40 hours by 2030, coupled with wage reforms that calculate hourly rates based on 160-hour months rather than 192-hour months
