The unemployment insurance programme is owed billions of VND due to lax regulations and lack of awareness.
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| More people join the programme |
The problem was discussed at a review conference five years after the implementation of the unemployment insurance programme held by the Ministry of Labours, Invalids and Social Affairs (Molisa).
Currently, around 8.3 million people are enrolled in the programme. In 2010 the fund was at VND609 billion (USD29 million) but reached VND7.9 trillion in 2012. However, the unpaid money has also sharply increased. In 2009, the debt owed to the social insurance fund was VND43.1 billion, increasing to VND600 billion as of August 2013.
The deputy head of the Social Insurance Policy Implementation Department, Nguyen Hung Cuong, said there are a number of reasons that caused such a huge debt. The first was the adverse effects from the economic downturn, and the second was non-adherence to the law. However, 50% of the debt is from the government.
According to regulation, any participant must pay 1% of their monthly wages to the fund and the government will match those funds. In reality, this 1% of support has been disbursed very slowly.
At the same time, many companies are avoiding their duties to employees. Even though employees' wages are cut down a little for unemployment insurance, companies do not follow proper procedures and try their best to keep employees working longer hours.
Punishments for violators are weak and the social insurance agencies also do not have clear regulations for inspection responsibilities.
Representatives from the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry suggested that social insurance agencies should extend the debt payment deadlines depending on the scale of the enterprise. They went on to recommend that the rules must be more stringently enforced.
According to the Molisa's Bureau of Employment, they will install new management software that will be able to connect all of their offices with social insurance agencies. This improvement is expected to shorten administration procedures and to more quickly deal with employees' requests.
