A foreign manager runs a search in Vietnam in January. Candidates are slow to reply. Two accept interviews and then go quiet. One verbally agrees to an offer and asks to start “after the holiday”. By mid February nothing has happened, and the conclusion drawn in head office is that the shortlist was weak or the recruiter was poor.
Neither is usually true. The search simply ran against the calendar.
Tet is the Lunar New Year, and in Vietnam it does more to the hiring market than any other single factor. In 2027 the first day falls on Saturday 6 February. In October 2026 the government approved a seven-day public-sector holiday from 4 to 10 February, and private employers choose their own schedule around the five statutory days.
Those dates are not the interesting part. What matters is the behaviour either side of them.
Why nobody resigns in January
Most Vietnamese employers pay a thirteenth month salary, and most pay it shortly before Tet.
It is not a statutory entitlement. The labour code treats bonuses as the employer’s decision, based on business results and individual performance. But it becomes legally binding the moment it is promised in writing, in a contract, a collective agreement or a published bonus policy, and enough employers do promise it that candidates treat it as normal. The usual calculation is simple: months worked divided by twelve, multiplied by average monthly salary, so somebody who leaves in month eleven forfeits a full month’s pay.
Now put yourself in the candidate’s position in December. You have eleven months of a thirteenth month salary accrued. Resigning now costs you that money, plus notice, plus the goodwill of the people who decide your reference. Nobody does it. They wait.
This is why a Vietnamese candidate pipeline goes quiet from roughly December, stays quiet through the holiday, and then moves all at once.
The wave, and why it is not as useful as it sounds
After Tet, the bonus is banked and the obligation is discharged. Resignations arrive. For a hiring employer this looks like the moment to be in the market, and it is, but with two qualifications that catch people out.
Everybody else is in it too. The same logic applies to every employer in Vietnam, so the wave of available candidates arrives at the same time as a wave of competing offers. Candidates who were unresponsive in December suddenly have three conversations running.
Your own team is exposed in the same weeks. Whoever you are trying to hire, somebody is trying to hire your people, and they are free to move for exactly the same reason. A hiring plan for Q1 that does not include a retention plan for Q1 is only half a plan.
What the calendar actually looks like
October and November. The productive window. Candidates will talk, because a conversation now costs them nothing and a move in March costs them nothing either. This is when a search should be opening, mapping the market and building relationships, even if the hire lands months later.
December and January. Slow, and it is not a signal about your role. Expect interest without commitment. Use it for interviews and for agreeing terms, not for expecting resignations.
The holiday itself. Effectively nothing moves. Factories close, offices close, people travel to their home provinces. Build the closure into project plans rather than discovering it.
The first weeks after Tet. The wave. Move quickly here or lose the candidates you spent the autumn building relationships with, because your competitors are moving at the same speed.
March onward. The market normalises. This is when most Q1 processes actually conclude, which is the source of the impression that Q1 recruitment “fails”. It did not fail. It ran on the Vietnamese calendar rather than the head office one.
Practical consequences
Add the bonus to your offer arithmetic. A candidate who leaves in February has already been paid. A candidate you ask to leave in November is walking away from eleven twelfths of a month’s salary, and will expect that to be recognised in the offer. Pretending otherwise stalls negotiations that were nearly done.
Set start dates realistically. Notice periods run through the holiday, and the practical handover often does not happen until after it.
Do not benchmark Vietnam against a European or American calendar. The dead weeks are different, the busy weeks are different, and a December pipeline report read with the wrong expectations looks alarming when it is normal.
Plan retention conversations before the bonus is paid, not after. By the time somebody has been paid and rested, they have already decided.
Remember annual leave is modest. Statutory paid annual leave is twelve working days for most employees, with an extra day after five years of service. Where a public holiday falls on a weekly rest day, the substitute day follows. People use annual leave around Tet to make the trip home worthwhile, which lengthens the quiet period beyond the official dates.
If you are hiring for the first time in Vietnam
Start the market mapping in October, interview through the quiet weeks, expect to close in the weeks after Tet, and budget the thirteenth month into the cost of the hire from the beginning. Our article on what it really costs to employ someone in Vietnam sets out the statutory side, and the thirteenth month sits on top of it. Note that it is taxable as personal income but does not form part of the social insurance base.
Where this sits in our work
People Profilers Vietnam recruits through our Ho Chi Minh City entity, licensed under Licence 6208/2024/20/SLĐTBXH-VLATLĐ. Our consultants work this calendar every year, which is the difference between a shortlist in January that looks thin and a search that was timed to land in March.
If you are planning a hire for next year, our recruitment service in Vietnam is the place to start, and the timing conversation is worth having before the brief is written rather than after.
Sources
Verified October 2026. Holiday schedules are set annually, so confirm the dates before planning around them.
- Tet 2027 beginning on Saturday 6 February 2027, and the approved seven-day public-sector holiday from 4 to 10 February: Vietnam News, cross-checked against VietnamNet
- Private employers choosing their own Tet schedule around the five statutory days: Vietnam News, September 2026
- The government approving the exact Tet schedule each year, the substitute day when a public holiday falls on a weekly rest day, and statutory paid annual leave of 12 working days rising by one day after five years of service: Vietnam Briefing
- The thirteenth month salary not being a statutory entitlement, bonuses being at the employer’s discretion under the labour code, the payment becoming binding once promised in a contract, collective agreement or published policy, the months worked divided by twelve calculation, and the treatment as taxable income but outside the social insurance base: Talentnet
