Do Ngoc Tho, head of the Insurance Policy Implementation Department under Viet Nam Social Security, said a report by the General Statistics Office showed that around 31.8 million people were indirectly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

They were the people who needed the support of the unemployment-insurance policy the most, he said.

Despite rapid growth over the years, the number of people participating in unemployment insurance only reached 13.03 million by October 2020, he said.

The number was still at a low level compared to the work force in the country, he said.

Therefore, to raise the effectiveness of the policy in the future, it was necessary to continue implementing measures to increase unemployment-insurance coverage so that it could support more workers, he added.

Besides, the insurance agency also submitted to authorised agencies to strengthen supervision of the implementation of the unemployment-insurance policy to quickly bring current unemployed labourers back to the labour market during the pandemic, he said.

The insurance agency asked relevant agencies to re-assess the effectiveness of vocational training activities as well as the activities of job recommendation for unemployed workers, he said.

Based on the assessments, the authorised agencies could make adjustments on supporting policies of vocational training and job recommendation for unemployed labourers in the near future, he said.

According to Tho, the unemployment-insurance policy in accordance with the 2006 Law on Social Insurance came into effect on January 1, 2009 with the aim of supporting employees who lost their jobs, and activities of vocational training and job recommendations to help unemployed labourers soon return to the labour market.

Since January 1, 2015, the policy has been implemented in accordance with the Law on Employment with amendments in terms of policy.

Thanks to the amendments, the number of people participating in unemployment insurance increased from nearly 6 million in 2009 to more than 13 million by December 31, 2019. The total number of people receiving a monthly unemployment allowance reached nearly 5.7 million with the total payment over VND52 trillion (US$2.2 billion).

The total number of people gaining vocational training support was over 200,000 people with financial support of VND408 billion ($17.6 million).

Additionally, the unemployment-insurance fund also paid medical expenses for beneficiaries of unemployment allowance with a total amount of approximately VND2.4 trillion ($104 million).

The number of unemployment-allowance beneficiaries in the early years of policy’s implementation was still relatively low, the time to receive unemployment allowance was short, reflecting that the spending on unemployment insurance compared to the unemployment insurance revenues fluctuated around 30 per cent.

However, the rate started to increase in recent years. Specifically, it was 52 per cent in 2015, 70 per cent in 2019, and especially, it was up to 90 per cent in the first ten months of this year, he said.

Tho said labourers would receive not only unemployment allowance but also job recommendations as well as vocational training courses when they lost their jobs.

Talking about where this unemployment-insurance fund comes from and how it was managed and operated, Tho said under the Law on Employment, the unemployment-insurance fund was formed by employees and employers’ contributions, the State's support, profits from the fund’s investment activities and other lawful revenues.

The State only supported the fund in accordance with the principle of maintaining the annual fund balance equal to two times the fund’s total expenditure of the previous year, but the maximum support was only equal to 1 per cent of the total monthly salary fund of participants paid for unemployment insurance.

The fund has been well operated and managed following recent regulations, he said.

It was estimated the residual value of the fund reached VND84 trillion ($3.6 billion) by the end of last year, he said.

The profits from annual investment activities were distributed in accordance with the regulations, he added./.