Typical working tools:
The most typical tools include two baskets on shoulders, bicycles, cyclos, or sometimes just displaying their goods on the streets. In Hanoi, life seems so convenient. No matter where you are, you can easily get anything you need from the street vendors. They can make money by carrying a “quang ganh” (two baskets slung from each end of a wooden or bamboo pole), riding a bicycle or staying at a street’s corner.
Gender balance:
Most ‘Street vendors’ in Vietnam is female who make their living by selling goods in the street. A significant propotion is male. Most are seasonal migrant workers from rural provinces. It portrays their daily lives, the difficulties and hardships they suffer to make a living, and their dreams for a better future. Many tourists salute these amazing people for supporting their families as well as the community, and the contribution they make to the society and the economy of Vietnam. Some do not, as they are afraid of scam risk.
Employment Context
The employment context of street vendors varies greatly. Many of them work long hours from the same site on a daily basis. Other vendors rotate among two or more sites, taking advantage of different types of clientele and different patterns of urban movement.
Low waged government staff or students also vendor. Some of them work on a more part-time basis, in weekly rotating markets or as seasonal vendors of specialty items. While some rely on street vending as a regular primary or secondary occupation, others vend only when an opportunity presents itself to earn extra income.
A variety of employment statuses can be found among street vendors. Most vendors work as independent self-employed entrepreneurs, either with or without employees. There are also many vendors who work as contributing family members, and some work as employees of informal or even formal enterprises.
Size:
In the Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, street vendors account for over 11 per cent of total informal employment. In these cities informal traders as a whole comprise 26 and 35 per cent of total informal employment, respectively.
Driving Forces
Like other occupational groups within the informal economy, the street vending sector seems to increase during economic downturns. While Vietnam economy is performing instably, and workers face the greatest increase in competition, the newly unemployed people turn to vending as a possible source of income to support their family.
Many of the working poor who enter Hanoi or Saigon streets vending do so because they cannot find jobs in the formal economy.
Other people take street vending because it offers a more flexible or even attractive employment option than wage or salaried work. Vendoring is a good way to avoid the costs of operating a formal storefront business. For many women, street vending is a more viable option even where wage work is available, because the flexibility of working hours allows them to fulfil their family need for dependent care.
Working Conditions:
Income and earnings risks are common to many street vendors. Harassment on the part of local authorities – including evictions, confiscation of merchandise, and demands for bribes – is a common source of income risk for street vendors. Vendors of seasonal goods do cope with fluctuations in supply and demand over time.
Many vendors must lift heavy loads of goods to and from their point of sale each day on their shoulders. The physical environments in which they work typically lack proper infrastructure, such as clean running water, toilets, and solid waste removal. They are also exposed to a high concentration of air pollutants and to inclement weather.These physical risks take a particular toll on young children who must accompany their mothers to vend in the streets.
Scam:
Tourists beware of street sellers who offer themselves to be photographed. They will pose with their baskets of wares balanced on headtops to be photographed or they will pass you their pole with basket of wares for you to carry and be photographed. After that, they will ask you to pay them a fee for taking their photo or using their equipments.
Lots of people are selling hats, books, fruits, flowers, postcards and t-shirt on the streets, following tourists from one place to another to sell their things. It's not always pleasant and tourists can't enjoy their walking tour because they constantly have to refuse politely from these aggressive sellers. Lots of sellers I've talked said that if they don't hassle people they don't sell anything and they go home empty handed.
Contribution to the economy
The most important point about street vendors is the large number of benefits they bring to the city and to the economy, which is often not recognized. They truly are the face of cities and they bring it to life; thus, many tourists are attracted by them to come to Saigon or Hanoi.
Street vendors contribute significantly to the local economy by providing reasonably-priced goods to the poor and middle class. This includes migrant workers, blue-collar workers and students who depend on them for daily necessities.
Helpful street vendors:
Street vendors are extremely hard-working and good people who have little income and little support. Each one of them has a story of their struggles that would touch your heart. Street vendors have really enriched expat experience living in Vietnam. They have always been open, friendly and easy to talk to, and have even taught Vietnamese to expats.
They are willing to share their life stories with those who ask and talk with foreigners without the least bit of shyness. Expats love walking down the street and seeing familiar faces and their bright smiles. It is so comforting because it makes them feel like they am part of a host community.
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