Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung made the statement in an official dispatch recently sent to National Assembly (NA) Deputy Pham Thi Kieu and the NA delegation of the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong.

The move came after Kieu questioned the results as well as problems in the implementation of Resolution 116/NQ-CP on supporting workers affected by the pandemic from the unemployment insurance fund at the second session of the 15th NA on November 2021.

At the same time, Kieu also said that during the pandemic, many businesses and localities have realised the role of migrant workers.

Therefore, at the session, Kieu asked Minister Dung that the most important things are to determine support policies for the migrant workers.

Answering the questions of Kieu, Minister Dung said regarding the implementation of Resolution 116/NQ-CP, data from Viet Nam Social Security showed that the agency basically determined the reduction of social insurance contributions for 9.68 million employees between October 2021 and September 2022.

The reduction is calculated to be worth about VND7.59 trillion (US$336 million), he said.

The agency’s branches in provinces and cities have reviewed and sent the list of over 11.3 million employees eligible for support to 375,861 employers so far.

Of which, 343,157 employers have confirmed the list of employees who are participating in unemployment insurance eligible for the support.

The number of employees who have stopped participating in unemployment insurance but still requested support is 1,289,332.

There are 28,038 employees, who are participating in unemployment insurance but voluntarily refused to receive the support.

The agency’s branches in provinces and cities have sent the support to 12,201,710 employees (including 11,338,951 employees who are participating in unemployment insurance, and 862,759 employees who stopped participating in unemployment insurance), worth over VND28.9 trillion ($1.28 billion).

Most of them are paid through the bank account of the employees.

The minister also added that during the resolution’s implementation, the agency’s branches in the provinces and cities encountered difficulties in determining the beneficiaries of the support for public non-business units such as the Bank for Social Policies and the local Radio and Television Station.

Another difficulty is that many employees who have stopped participating in unemployment insurance and moved to their hometowns after the fourth wave of the pandemic, are eligible for the support but they have not received enough information about the policy to actively contact the agency to get it.

Therefore, the ministry has ordered provinces and cities to focus on re-checking the list of employees eligible for support, especially employees in public non-business units and employees working under labour contracts at public non-business units that are not guaranteed regular expenditures from the State budget as prescribed.

The ministry also told localities to promote the dissemination of support to employees, who stopped participating in unemployment insurance so that they can receive information and benefit from the support.

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Many policies have been issued to support enterprises to maintain production during the pandemic, including fiscal policies (tax reduction, extension of tax payment deadline, reduction of some fees and charges); credit support policies (support disbursement, debt extension, interest rate support for businesses to develop production); preferential credit packages; reducing the payment of occupational accident and occupational disease insurance, reducing the contributions to the trade union fund; suspending contributions to the retirement and survivorship fund; support in training and improvement of skills to maintain jobs for employees; as well as interest-free loans to pay wages and restore production.

Some solutions to help businesses retain employees have been applied, including implementing the "3 on-site" model, which involves eating, sleeping, and working without leaving, to keep production going while ensuring COVID-19 control and prevention measures are met.

For employees who stop working because their enterprises have to suspend production, the enterprises took measures to retain employees such as actively keeping contact to invite the employees to return when the pandemic is under control and production is resumed; many businesses tried to find solutions to not terminate the labour contract with their employees, they still pay salary for employees or still make payment of social insurance for the employees although production is suspended./.