Amending and expanding policies to support employees facing difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Illustrative image)

In which, there are amendments and supplements to a number of regulations on beneficiaries of support policies. Specifically, previously, Decision 23/2021/QD-TTg only stipulated that the beneficiaries of the support were employees working at enterprises, cooperatives, public non-business units who self-finance their recurrent expenses or investment and recurrent expenditures, people-founded and private educational institutions at the level of preschool, kindergarten, primary school, junior high school, high school, vocational education (enterprise, cooperatives, public non-business units, educational institutions) must suspend operations at the request of competent state agencies to prevent and control the COVID-19 epidemic.

However, in Decision No. 33/2021/QD-TTg, the support subjects are amended and supplemented as follows: “Employees working under labor contracts must suspend the performance of labor contracts and take unpaid leave due to one of the following cases: under COVID-19 treatment, medical isolation, being in closed areas, unable to go to the workplace due to the request of a competent state agency to prevent and combat the COVID-19 epidemic; due to the employer's operation is temporarily suspended in whole or in part at the request of a competent state agency for the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic or has a head office, branch, representative office, production and business locations in the area implementing measures to prevent and control the epidemic according to the principles of Directive No. 16/CT-TTg dated March 31, 2020 of the PM on the implementation of urgent measures on COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control (hereinafter abbreviated as Directive No. 16/CT-TTg) or apply measures of inactivity/stopping/limited operation/conditional operation/limited and conditional operation according to Resolution No. 128/NQ-CP dated October 11, 2021 of the Government promulgating the temporary regulation "Safely and flexibly adapting, effectively controlling the COVID-19 epidemic" (hereinafter abbreviated as Decree No. 128/NQ-CP) or redeployment of production and labor for the prevention and control of COVID-19 will be supported when the following conditions are satisfied:

Firstly, suspending the performance of the labor contract, taking unpaid leave during the term of the labor contract, from 15 consecutive days or more, from May 1, 2021 to the end of December 31, 2021 and the time to start suspending the performance of labor contracts, taking unpaid leave from May 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021.

Second, participating in compulsory social insurance (named on the list of participating in compulsory social insurance of the social security agency) in the month the employee suspends the performance of the labor contract or takes unpaid leave or in the month immediately preceding the time when the employee suspends the performance of the labor contract or takes unpaid leave.”; additional support for the elderly and the disabled.

Furthermore, in addition to support for children during the treatment period due to COVID-19 infection or medical isolation previously prescribed, Decision 33/2021/QD-TTg supplements regulations on support for the elderly and the disabled.

Specifically, for children, the elderly, and people with disabilities during treatment due to COVID-19 infection or medical isolation, an additional one-time support of 1 million VND/person will be applied.