(TT) - Though the Tet or the lunar New Year is traditionally a time for family gatherings, many migrant workers in Ho Chi Minh City have chosen to remain back this year to save the cost of the trip home and to earn some extra money during the festive season.Many others are, in fact, arriving in the city ahead of the festival, with friends and relatives receiving them in droves at bus and rail stations.
Vo Da of Duc Pho District in Quang Ngai Province has traveled 800 kilometers to join his wife and begin selling noodle soup in Binh Tan District.
Dang Van Hao and his wife from the same locality, who sell lottery tickets to support their third child, a student of Transport Technical and Professional School No.3, have decided to stay back and continue working during the New Year.
Ha of the north-central Ha Tinh Province will hawk food around Le Van Tam Park during the festival along with her daughter, Hong, who arrived recently.
But the exact number of people who have arrived or are headed for the city is not known.
Most of them will work as street-side food and drink vendors, lottery ticket sellers, and casual workers.
Tuan from the central province of Quang Binh , a vegetable seller at a city market, has decided to send money home instead of returning, promising to visit next year.
Ngoc, a worker at footwear company See Young from the northern Ninh Binh Province , will celebrate her second straight Tet in the city with her roommates.
There around 625,000 rural workers out of around one million migrants living in slums and boarding houses in the city’s outskirts, according to the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.
Most of them work in industrial parks and processing zones and play a very important role in the economy by contributing almost a third of the city’s total output of goods and services, according to an estimate by newswire Vietnamnet.
But the actual number may be higher Nguyen Van Minh, deputy head of the culture and society department of the city People’s Council.
HCMC is expected to growth into a mega city -- defined as one with a population of more than 10 million -- within the next decade.
