VIETNAM Law and Practice Contributed by: Ngoc Luong Trinh, Tung Nguyen, Hanh Vo, Esko Cate, Nguyen Dang, Khanh Le, Hoang Nguyen and Truc Ta, VILAF
consecutive days; and (vii) the employee provides untruthful information af - fecting their recruitment in the first place. For the cases set out in (i), (ii), (iii), (v) and (vii) above, the employer must give prior notice of at least: • 45 days (for indefinite-term contracts); • 30 days (for definite-term contracts of 12–36 months); • 3 working days (for definite-term contracts under 12 months); and • 3 working days for the case in (ii) above. In certain sectors (eg, aviation personnel, enterprise management personnel and seafarers), longer notice periods may apply. However, an employer may not unilaterally terminate the contract where: • the employee is undergoing treatment or rehabilita - tion prescribed by a competent medical establish - ment (except for the case in (ii) above); • the employee is on annual leave, personal leave or other employer-approved leave; and • the female employee is pregnant or the employee is on maternity leave or raising a child under 12 months of age. Retrenchment/Collective Redundancies An employer may implement retrenchment/ collec - tive redundancies in the following circumstances: (i) technological or organisational changes, (ii) economic reasons (eg, recession or restructuring of the econo - my) or (iii) company restructuring or change of control. An employer must strictly comply with the statutory requirements, the most important of which are: • establishing and justifying the basis and necessity for collective redundancies; • preparing a labour usage plan (detailing, among others, the employees who are kept, re-trained for continued employment, moved to part-time positions or terminated) with the consultation of the employees’ representative organisation at the grassroots level;
• offering impacted employees new positions (if available); • announcing the labour usage plan within 15 days of its adoption; and • for cases involving technological or organisational changes or economic difficulties, consulting the relevant grassroots employees’ representative organisation at the grassroots level and giving at least 30 days’ prior notice of the proposed termina - tion to the labour authority and affected employ - ees. Employee Dismissal An employer may dismiss an employee for commit - ting certain serious disciplinary violations prescribed under the Labour Code, including: • committing theft, embezzlement, gambling, inten - tional injury or drug use at the workplace; • disclosing trade or technological secrets; • infringing the employer’s intellectual property rights; • causing serious damage or threatening particu - larly serious damage to the employer’s assets or interests (what constitutes serious damage or par - ticularly serious damage is normally defined in the employer’s internal labour rules, which are required to be registered with the relevant Department of Home Affairs); or • committing workplace sexual harassment. What constitutes serious damage or particularly seri - ous damage is normally defined in the employer’s internal labour rules, which are required to be regis - tered with the relevant Department of Home Affairs. • repeating the same misconduct within a certain period after having been disciplined by wage increase deferral or demotion for such misconduct; and • being absent without a valid reason for a total of five days within a 30-day period or 20 days within a 365-day period. The dismissal process, including the conduct of a dis - ciplinary hearing, must be carried out in strict compli - ance with applicable legal requirements.
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