The artist team is facing many difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, performing arts activities are temporarily suspended. Illustrative image by Le Hai.
The document states that, over the past time, the Government and the Prime Minister have issued many policies to support people and businesses facing difficulties due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the performing arts and tourism sectors are suffering the most direct and heaviest losses due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. So far there have been no supportive policies.
Specifically, from the beginning of 2020 until now, the team of artists participating in performing arts activities, the tour guide team are almost unable to operate due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, to remove difficulties for the contingent of artists and tour guides, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs to propose Prime Minister several support solutions.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs to supplement to Section II the draft Resolution on the subjects and contents of support: Support for artists holding professional titles of Class IV art director, class IV actor, class IV painter in public non-business units engaged in performing arts (this is a group of artists whose salary is lower than the regional minimum wage). The support level is 1,800,000 VND/person/month, support for 3 months and paid once.
According to the document, the proposed reason is that performing arts labor is a specific type of labor, the team of artists must be gifted and talented and must be trained in many forms (tutoring, at places, training through art training institutions, etc.) and must be trained from a young age (7-8 aged), the training time is long and only reaches the intermediate and college level of training. Artists’ art performance period is very short, about 15 to 20 years on average; from the age of 30 to 40 (for women) and 40 to 45 (for men), the artist’s performance is reduced, unable to meet the professional requirements of the performing arts profession.
In fact, according to the state salary scale, despite having talents and aptitudes, and being elaborately created, however, recruited as public employees in public non-business units, the artist team is ranked the same salary as other occupations (ranking salary according to training level; salary increase according to an average annual term of 2 years, salary grade increase for class IV, starting salary coefficient 1.86 x base salary 1,490,000 VND), currently, the object of public employees as artists cannot enjoy all the salary levels in the ranks when their career age is short.
Currently, the whole country has 100 public non-business units engaged in performing arts (excluding armed forces art units) with more than 2,000 officials who are artists holding class IV professional titles. This group is struggling to ensure life due to the COVID-19 pandemic, performing arts activities are temporarily suspended.
The document also proposes the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to supplement Section II the draft Resolution on the subjects and contents of support: Support for workers as tour guides who lose their jobs due to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The support level is 1,800,000 VND/person/month, support for 3 months and paid once.
The reason for the proposal is that this group has lost its job due to the stalled tourism activities since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020 until now. The policies to support workers have not been clearly defined as tour guides, so they have not yet received any support from the Government.
Meanwhile, the total number of tour guides who have been issued with cards nationwide is now more than 26,721 people, of which 16,965 international tour guides, 8,743 domestic ones and 1,013 ones at place. According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, this group of guides has made an important contribution to the development of the tourism industry, bringing benefits to the country’s economy during the past time.
VH