13 million employees and 386,000 businesses will receive a support package of VND30 trillion

Le Hung Son, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Social Insurance.

Vietnam Social Insurance is working with the Ministry of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs to propose to the Government for promulgation a Resolution and directly organise the implementation of policies to support workers and businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Could you tell us more about the implementation of this support package?

With the direction of the National Assembly, the Government and ministries, Vietnam Social Insurance (SI) has planned the processes and procedures to deploy the support package in the spirit of thoroughly ensuring implement steps to support employees and firms in a simple, convenient, fastest and most accurate way.

For 38,000 employers, the contribution will be fall from 1% to zero to the Unemployment Insurance Fund for a period of 12 months (from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022), there will be no administrative procedures. The social insurance agency, based on data on the management software of collection of social insurance, health insurance (HI) and unemployment insurance, will monthly print out a payment reconciliation table of the receivables and payables. On that payment table, we will exclude the 1% contribution to the unemployment insurance fund of the firm.

For 13 million employees, the social insurance agency will work based on the existing information technology (IT) database to determine the beneficiaries of the support package by the ID number participating in unemployment insurance and determine the duration of participation in unemployment insurance. All this information is available in the IT data system of the Vietnam Social Insurance industry.

How will the payment for employees be implemented?

For employees participating in unemployment insurance at firms, we will pay through personal accounts. Currently, we are implementing the Government's Resolution on strengthening non-cash payments. In the context of the complicated development of the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment of support policies for employees through accounts is both timely and transparent and meets the policy of not using the cash of the company.

Employees working at firms only need to provide firms with personal account numbers; for information related to personal identity such as identity card number/citizen's identification number and the time of participation in unemployment insurance of employees, the social insurance agency will print it out for employees to check.

In special cases when the employee cannot open a personal account, the social insurance agency will pay through the firm. However, to ensure timeliness and transparency, Vietnam Social Insurance recommends that employees can quickly open personal accounts through the banking, system so they can receive the fastest and most accurate information.

For employees who have reserved the time to participate in unemployment insurance from January 1, 2020, those employees who have stopped working, suspended labour contracts not at firms and have returned to localities, the provincial/district social insurance agencies will receive requests for support policies from employees, regardless of the administrative boundaries.

Resolution 116 of the Government requires the implementation of this support package in three months (from October 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021), but recently the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs has determined completed the implementation of the support package in 1.5 months. So what is the opinion of Vietnam Social Insurance?

After the Government's Resolution No. 116 was issued, with the industry's information technology background, the General Director of Vietnam Social Insurance directed professional units, as well as local social insurance agencies, to be ready.

Thoroughly grasping the spirit of the resolutions and with drastic direction, I think that the expected progress in implementing the support policies of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs is feasible.

On the side of Vietnam's social insurance sector, the General Director of Vietnam Social Insurance directed that they will try to complete it sooner if businesses and employees coordinate with the social insurance agency. Because on the side of Vietnam Social Insurance, the implementation is ready, but there is a difficulty that about 2.5 million employees who are currently holding unemployment insurance are scattered to localities.

The participation of media agencies, local authorities to propagate and disseminate to employees who are eligible for active support to the provincial and district social insurance agencies is very important. This is the deciding factor for whether the implementation of the support package is completed on schedule or not.