Presenting the report at the meeting, Mr. Le Tan Dung - Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) said that in the first 9 months of 2020, the issue of labor and employment (development of the labor market, job creation, implemention of policies on social and unemployment insurance, salaries, labor relations, OSH and foreign labor management, development of vocational education and enhancement of human resources) have been heavily affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. The labor force participation rate is record low; the unemployment and underemployment rate of the labor force in the age group have increased due to the declining labor market demand.

As reported by the General Statistics Office, the workforce of 54.2 million people has decreased by nearly 1.3 million people over the same period in 2019; The labor force participation rate reached 73.8%, down 2.8 percentage points over the same period last year. In September 2020, Vietnam had 30.8 million workers negatively affected by COVID-19 and possibly more at the end of the year, of which the number of people with income loss accounts for 57.3%. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits increased by 33% over the same period in 2019; On average, 99,000 people each month submit dossiers to receive unemployment benefits; the peak was in May 2020 with 160,247 people and in June with 137,508 people; The number of people applying for unemployment benefits has risen in all provinces, cities, and economic regions.

Dung also shared, in the context of common difficulties, the whole industry has focused and prioritized the prevention and control of the epidemic. Simultaneously, solutions must be made to strictly comply with the instructions of the Government and the Prime Minister, especially the solutions to support employees, supply labor for enterprises, resolve difficulties for production and business; and well implement social security. Due to the synchronous and effective implementation of solutions, the socio-economic situation in general gradually stabilized; production and business were restored; enterprises with new registration or returning to operation after a long term of suspension due to social distancing, creating various jobs for employees (it is estimated that from May 2020 onwards, on average, each month, the whole country shall witness 40,000-50,000 unemployed workers coming back to the labor market).

Regarding the results of implementing the targets, Dung said, on the basis of the results of the tasks in the first 9 months of the year and the expected scenarios according to the developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, except for a number of targets in the labor - employment sector (job creation, unemployment rate, trained labor rate, social insurance participation rate) were heavily affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, thus it was low compared to the same period, etc.

Discussing the above difficulties, Mrs. Le Thi Nguyet - Vice Head of the NA’s Committee on Social Issues proposed to further evaluation on the implementation of the policy in recent years regarding which contents have not come into play or which contents have been effective and able to capture people's minds and aspirations; impacts on female workers, especially workers in the informal sector. There have been breakthrough mechanisms and policies, yet it did not reach the expected results. Therefore, it is necessary to make a comparison of the years in the whole period to have a direction for the upcoming period; Consider evaluation and creating jobs for informal workers.

Deputy Chairman Nguyen Hoang Mai said, in addition to assessing the unsatisfactory targets, it is also important to correctly recognize the actual effectiveness of the indicators such as: poverty reduction targets, social assistance, policies for suppliers, etc.

Delivering the meeting’s conclusion speech, Mr. Bui Sy Loi - Vice Chairman of the NA's Committee for Social Issues said that the Standing Committee had reach to an agreement on the contents of the MOLISA’s report. At the same time, what should be noted is that the Ministry’s law-building process is still in slow pace; summative evaluation is hardly done in designing and proposing policy contents, thus causing problems to arise when submitting for implementation. Along with that, the IT application of the industry has been restricted; economic restructuring has led to unstable employment, resulting in low productivity; in particular, the social security policy has been unsynchronous, etc. Therefore, the MOLISA undoubtedly needs to do an overall research on social security and social insurance policies to ensure social equity. - Mr. Bui Sy Loi suggested./.