Trần Thị Thanh Hà

After more than two years of being heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, workers continue to face difficulties in employment and decreasing income. Deploying solutions to support workers in a timely manner is essential. Trần Thị Thanh Hà, Head of the Department of Labour Relations of the Việt Nam General Confederation of Labour talks to Công an Nhân dân (People’s Police) Newspaper about the matter.

According to the Việt Nam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL), more than 41,000 employees had to quit their jobs, and more than 470,000 employees were affected by the lack of orders for businesses. However, it seems that this number does not fully reflect the reality of the difficulties that workers and businesses are facing today. Is that true?

In general, that number changes constantly. For example, according to the latest update from the Việt Nam General Confederation of Labour up to this point, about 670,000 people have been affected by job loss due to reduced orders and the number of employees whose labour contracts have been terminated is about 45,000 people. The number of workers whose jobs are most affected is in enterprises in the wood processing sector, followed by textiles, footwear, and some electronic businesses. Mostly, job loss happens in labour-intensive businesses. In the past, many workers have found new jobs in other enterprises.

In the current context, although many businesses had to lay off their employees, but there are also many businesses that are still short of workers, especially in some localities, there is still a shortage of workers. Among the tens of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs, there are also many who have not yet found a job.

There are many causes for this situation. Firstly, these are the old workers who want to receive one-time social insurance. Secondly, they do not want to go to work in another company because when they enter a new job, the salary will have to be recalculated from the beginning with a low rate. This phenomenon also poses the problem that there must be solutions to retraining workers and creating jobs for older workers. The number of employees affected will certainly fluctuate because of the fact that both businesses and employees still face many difficulties, especially when Tết holidays is approaching.

According to experts, this situation will continue to be difficult until March 2023. What is the forecast of the Việt Nam General Confederation of Labour?

Yes, the forecast of the General Confederation of Labour is that the first quarter and second quarter of 2023 will continue to be difficult because the number of orders has not recovered. It is possible that from now until the end of the second quarter of 2023, businesses will continue to cut another 15,000 employees. Along with that, about 271,000 people will have their working hours reduced. We believe that by the third quarter of 2023, the reduction of labour, as well as labour fluctuations, will cease. At that time, the number of orders will be able to recover or businesses that are short of workers will continue to have to promote recruitment to stabilise production. We are hoping that the last six months of 2023 will be better.

According to the monitoring of the General Confederation of Labour, in recent times, does job tension affect labour relations?

Tens of thousands of people lost their jobs, about 670,000 people were affected, so the impact on labour relations is inevitable. Labour relations right now paints a relatively bleak picture. Our tracking compared to last year saw an increase of 51 work stoppages and strikes. There are many reasons, but, there is no case of strikes due to labour changes.

There is a very important issue that employees do not stop working because of the difficulties of the enterprise. Job stoppage is forecast to continue to increase, but due to other reasons such as: employers not announcing Tết bonus, no bonus or policies that employers must solve for employees before Tết...

In the past few days, many workers queued all night to wait for a one-time social insurance withdrawal at some places in Hồ Chí Minh City. The wave of job loss is forecast to continue to be intense, so the number of people losing their jobs and withdrawing one-time social insurance may increase. What do you think about this issue?

Workers are afraid that the rate of social insurance benefits when they retire will be reduced, and thus they tend to think even if they participate in social insurance for enough time to be entitled to pension policies, their pension rate would be very low. So as a matter of fact, many workers want to withdraw their social insurance.

This is one of the problems that damage our interests in the long run and the sustainability of workers. We, together with the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs as well as the Vietnam Social Security, have put together simple calculations to recommend to employees that it is much more profitable to enjoy retirement benefits than to withdraw one-time social insurance upon termination of the labour contract. However, it seems like the information dissemination activities have not been quite effective.

There have been suggestions that, in the current context, when employees lose their jobs, it is also an opportunity to retrain workers towards solving the long-term employment problem. What do you think and what recommendations have the General Confederation of Labour of Việt Nam have to solve the current problem?

There are many solutions for each agency from the Government to ministries and branches. We have also made some recommendations. For example, for the Government, we have proposed solutions, such as extending policies to support employers and employees affected by COVID-19. Secondly, we also recommend reducing the insurance premium for occupational accidents and diseases for businesses.

Along with that, it is possible to apply a number of other solutions such as suspending the payment of the retirement pension fund, providing support in training and improving skills for employees, and providing loans to businesses to pay wages during the time employees have to stop working, or provide loans for businesses to restore production.

As for the employees, we propose to support those who are temporarily suspended from work, have to stop working or have to terminate their labour contracts. Along with that, there are policies to support rent for employees, support for workers whose working hours are reduced but income is lower than the minimum wage.

Among the unemployed workers, many people have returned to find jobs in other enterprises, but there are also many workers who are over 35 or 40 years old and do not want to go back to work.

This is a relatively large group. This situation is also happening in other countries, but their economy is better, so they build funds to support elderly workers when their labour contracts are terminated. Due to economic difficulties, we have not been able to build these funds, so retraining workers or solutions to solving the problem of employment for this group of people are very necessary. VNS