Effective on January 1 next year, the new Law on Employment (the Law) provides employment creation support policies, labor market information, assessment and grant of certificates of national occupational skills, employment service organizations and activities and unemployment insurance. The 62-article Law governs employment issues for all workers, including workers who have jobs and workers who have no jobs but have the ability and willingness to work. The Law aims to create equal employment opportunities and assure sustainable employment for all people.
The Law affirms principles of employment: ensuring the right to work and freely choose jobs and workplaces, ensuring equality in employment opportunities and incomes, and ensuring working under safe and hygienic conditions.
Employment creation support policies
Under the Law, the State encourages organizations and individuals to create employment for others and for themselves with incomes at least equal to the minimum wage level, contributing to socio-economic and labor market development. The State also offers preferences for labor-intensive and hi-tech sectors and trades, and support employers that employ many people with disabilities, women and ethnic minority people.
The Law devotes Chapter II to providing employment creation support policies. Accordingly, six groups of support policies are specified, including credit incentive for employment creation, employment change support for workers in rural areas, public employment policies, support for guest workers, employment creation support for young people and support for labor market development. Public employment policies are new policies aiming to create employment and incomes for rural inhabitants through the implementation of state-funded projects or activities associated with socio-economic development programs in communes.
Besides the above support policies, the Law also specifies support for labor market development through the improvement of labor market information and the development of employment services.
Processing tra catfish for export in An Giang province__Photo: Phuong Vy/VNA
Under Article 26, agencies, organizations, enterprises and individuals must accurately and timely provide labor market information, including employment status and trends, labor supply and demand and labor supply and demand development in labor markets, foreign workers in Vietnam and Vietnamese guest workers, and salaries and wages.
Under Article 36, employment services include job counseling and recommendation, supply and recruitment of workers at the request of employers, and collection and provision of labor market information. Employment service organizations include employment service centers and employment service enterprises.
Unemployment insurance
Compulsory participants in unemployment insurance are defined in Article 43, including:
- Workers working under labor contracts or working contracts: labor contracts or working contracts of indefinite time or definite time, seasonal or job-based working contracts with a term of between full three months and under 12 months. These workers who are currently on pension or doing housework are not required to participate in unemployment insurance.
- Employers being state agencies, public non-business units and people’s armed forces units; political organizations, socio-political organizations, socio-political-professional organizations, social organizations and socio-professional organizations; foreign agencies and organizations and international organizations operating in Vietnam; enterprises, cooperatives, households, business households, cooperative groups, other organizations and individuals that hire or employ workers under labor contracts or working contracts.
Employers must pay unemployment insurance premiums for workers to social insurance organizations within 30 days from the effective date of labor contracts or working contracts. Monthly, they must pay unemployment insurance premiums and make deductions from the wages of workers for simultaneous payment to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. For workers, the unemployment insurance premium level is equal to 1% of their monthly wage. For employers, this level is equal to 1% of the monthly wage fund of the workers currently participating in unemployment insurance. Besides, the State will provide at most 1% of the monthly wage fund from the central budget as support for payment of unemployment insurance premiums for workers currently participating in unemployment insurance.
For workers receiving wages under the State-prescribed regime, the monthly wage on which unemployment insurance premiums are based is the monthly wage on which compulsory social insurance premiums are based under the Social Insurance Law. If this monthly wage is higher than twenty months’ region-based basic wage, the monthly wage on which unemployment insurance premiums are based will equal the twenty months’ region-based basic wage at the time of payment of unemployment insurance premiums. For workers paying unemployment insurance premiums under the wage regime decided by employers, the monthly wage on which unemployment insurance premiums are based is the monthly wage on which compulsory social insurance premiums are based under the Social Insurance Law. If this monthly wage is higher than twenty months’ region-based minimum wage, the monthly wage on which unemployment insurance premiums are based will equal the twenty months’ region-based minimum wage as prescribed by the Labor Code at the time of payment of unemployment insurance premiums.
Unemployment insurance benefits are provided in Article 42, including unemployment allowance, job counseling and recommendation support, vocational training support, and support for training and retraining to improve qualification of occupational skills for job maintenance for workers. Compared to current regulations, these benefits do not change, but the Law adds provisions on conditions, order and procedures for receipt of unemployment insurance benefits.
The period during which workers have paid unemployment insurance premiums under the Social Insurance Law before the effective date of the Law but have not yet received any unemployment allowance will be added to the period of payment of unemployment insurance premiums under the Law.
Prohibited acts
Prohibited acts are listed in Article 9, specifically:
- Committing discriminatory acts in employment and occupations;
- Infringing upon the body, honor, dignity, property, the lawful rights and interests of workers or employers;
- Recruiting or employing workers in contravention of law;
- Enticing, promising and deceitfully advertising to deceive workers, or taking advantage of employment services or labor market information to commit illegal acts;
- Committing fraud or forging dossiers in the implementation of employment policies;
- Obstructing, or causing difficulties or damage to, the lawful rights and interests of workers or employers.
To enforce the Code, three decrees will be issued.
The provisions of the 2006 Law on Social Insurance regarding unemployment insurance and Chapter IX- Assessment and Grant of Certificates of National Occupational Skills of the 2006 Law on Vocational Training will cease to be effective on the effective date of the Law.-