In order to promptly implement this Decision, on the afternoon of July 7, 2021, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs held a press conference to announce the Decision No. 23/2021/QD-TTg. Speaking at the conference, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that Decision No. 23/2021/QD-TTg aims to standardize the implementation of measures to support employees and employers facing difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic in Resolution No. 68/NQ-CP dated July 1, 2021 of the Government. The decision consists of 11 chapters and 46 articles. All instructions or application processes will be specifically given to those supported by Resolution No. 68/NQ-CP in the spirit of maximum simplification of procedures in most transparent way for employees and employers to access easily but still in accordance with the law. The Minister emphasized: “One of the issues that policy beneficiaries are most concerned about is the procedures and documents for receiving support. The motto of the order and procedures shall be as open as possible so that employees and employers can access policies but law compliance is guaranteed.

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Providing more information about Decision 23/2021/QD-TTg, the Minister said that it has significant new points, that is, 12 groups of policy objects will be extremely concretized, in terms of method and time of implementation, or resolving process. Unambiguous decentralization upholds the responsibility of the head, which is the chairman of the People's Committee of the local authorities.

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung suggested localities shall base on the actual situation of their localities to provide policies to support freelance workers. These are the subjects who suffer the hardest strike by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is quite difficult to make disbursement procedures for this group of people. Therefore, the Government only sets the floor level, and the specific support level will be decided by the locality.

"Up to now, people are on a daily basis looking forward to the Government's Resolution No. 68 coming into life, especially freelance workers and direct labor force. Ministries, agencies and localities to soon deploy to benefit workers. Any agency or locality delaying the support shall be blamed on. Any agency, person, locality, or unit that causes the occurrence of negativity or policy self-seeking shall also be blamed on." emphasized Dung.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Le Van Thanh also said that the COVID-19 pandemic has put a negative impact on production and the labor market in our country; hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs, millions of workers had to take leaves and their income is reduced; Many production and business establishments were forced to stop operating.

Facing the complicated development of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has advised and submitted to the Government for the issuance of Resolution No. 68/NQ-CP, contributing to minimizing the negative impacts of the pandemic and recovering production and business, stabilizing labor and employment, ensuring the life and safety of workers, maintaining the goal of both epidemic prevention and control and economic development.

Deputy Minister Le Van Thanh also informed about the new points of Resolution No. 68/NQ-CP. He noted, learning from the implementation of Resolution No. 42/NQ-CP dated April 9, 2020 of the Government, Resolution No. 68/NQ-CP was built on the principle of timely support; favorable criteria and conditions for employees and employers to easily access policies; promote the initiative of all levels, branches and localities, based on specific conditions to flexibly deploy; ensuring the feasibility and effectiveness of policies and resources for implementation.

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Specifically, in terms of subjects, the Resolution focuses on supporting employees and employers to ensure the dual goals of epidemic prevention and control and economic development. Regarding support conditions, it is to reduce the period of suspension and unpaid leave to 15 days; remove regulations on tax declaration revenue of less than VND 100 million/year for business households, and businesses only need to stop operating for 15 consecutive days or more; reduce the conditions for temporary suspension of contributions to the retirement and survivorship fund from 50% to 15% of employees.

The resolution adds many new policies such as: reduce the premium for occupational accidents and diseases; support job maintenance training for employees; support employees who are taking leaves; support children and workers who are pregnant and raising children; support people who are under treatment for COVID-19 infection (F0) and people who have to undergo medical isolation (F1); support artistic directors, actors, painters holding professional titles of IV class in public non-business units engaged in performing arts activities (excluding art units of the armed forces) and tour guide; loans to pay salaries to restore production and business.

The Government assigns localities based on specific conditions and budgetary capacity of each locality to develop criteria, determine beneficiaries and level of support for employees without labor contracts (self-employed)./.