To speed up the progress of rent support for workers

Working with Binh Duong province, Le Van Thanh, Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs assessed that dossiers of rent support for employees in the province under Decision No. 08/2022/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister had only reached about 40%; that’s still behind schedule. Le Van Thanh asked the province to speed up the progress because the deadline for receiving applications is the end of August 15.

Disburse reaches just nearly VND33 billion

On July 19, a delegation of the Ministry of Labor – War Invalids and Social Affairs, led by Deputy Minister Le Van Thanh, had a meeting with Binh Duong province on the implementation of labor, employment, unemployment insurance and rent support policies for employees according to the Prime Minister's Decision No. 08/2022/ QD-TTg. Receiving and working with the delegation was Nguyen Loc Ha, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee.

Le Van Thanh (third from the left), Deputy Minister of Labor – War Invalids and Social Affairs, and the delegation work with board of directors of Shyang Hung Cheng Company.

According to the report of Provincial Department of Labor – War Invalids and Social Affairs, by July 18, the total number of applications received by district-level People's Committees was 1,968 enterprises, with 296,378 employees and a total amount of VND 168,852 billion. Namely, support for employees working in enterprises is 1,476 enterprises, with 283,858 employees and a total amount of VND156.332 billion; support for employees to return to the labor market is 492 enterprises, with 12,520 employees and a total amount of more than VND12.5 billion. Previously, according to the plan of Department of Labor – War Invalids and Social Affairs, Binh Duong province had about 820,000 employees who applied for support of this package, corresponding to the amount of VND 1,380 billion approved for expenditure. The total number of units that have received the support funds is 310 enterprises, with 45,500 employees, total amount of nearly VND33 billion.

In order to accelerate the support package to soon come in hand of employees, right from first days of the implementation or two months ago, the Provincial People's Committee authorized the district level to check dossiers and approve expenditures to reach the fastest progress possible. The deadline for receiving applications is 15 August. However, two months have passed, the building and checking of dossiers has taken place slowly, it seems to be difficult to complete works on time. Currently, the total number of approved applications only reaches about 40% of the beneficiaries. Pham Van Tuyen, Deputy Director of Department of Labor – War Invalids and Social Affairs, said that in order to speed up the disbursement progress of rent support funds for employees, the department had issued 12 documents for the district level to guide the building of dossiers, coordination with Provincial Labor Confederation, Social Insurance, departments and branches.

"However, there were some difficulties, such as businesses slowly carried out, owners of rented houses or rooms were far away and assigned to others to manage their houses or rooms, so they could not sign and certify the applications; because an employee may reside in many different houses or rooms, hence the employee's declaration and the time to return the application to their enterprise was inconsistent, especially enterprises with large numbers of employee. Human resources of enterprises are limited to review, compare dossiers with regulations, thus it took a long time. Besides, businesses are also afraid because Decision 08 binds great responsibility..."   

To coordinate, speed up the progress

Speaking at the meeting, Le Van Thanh said that Binh Duong is a province that thrives in industry, with more than 1.5 million workers. Employees in Binh Duong have a high income, stable life. In peak months of the Covid-19 in 2021, besides the Government's support funds for employees, Binh Duong were flexible, had its own support policy for employees, helped them overcome difficulties. The rent support under Decision No. 08 not only helps employees overcome difficulties after the pandemic, but also helps enterprises to retain employees. Therefore, the province must speed up the application process and complete before August 15.

He emphasized: "The Provincial People's Committee must urge departments, branches to focus their efforts on implementing this policy under the direction of the Prime Minister in order not to lose employees’ trust. Localities must coordinate well, if a house or room owner does not confirm, meet and work directly with him. Any enterprise that is slow in the implementation, the Provincial Labor Federation must review and make a list and report in order to have a solution. 

Localities must reinforce human resource for the processing of dossiers at this time, and work overtime, if necessary”. Le Van Thanh also asked localities to accelerate the fourth-shot vaccination against Covid-19 for employees; inspect and supervise the increase of the regional minimum wage after July 1 as prescribed, and must report enterprises that have not increased the wage to have a solution to protect interests of employees. The labor recruitment must be supervised and assessed to prevent a lack of human resource. The management of foreign workers that work and reside in the province must be tightened.

Earlier, the delegation of Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs went to An Thanh Industrial Cluster (An Thanh ward, Thuan An City) worked with board of directors of Shyang Hung Cheng Company, where has more than 8,500 employees. The delegation acknowledged the company's effort to take good care of employees. The delegation reminded the company's board of directors to process more quickly dossiers of rent support for employees, the fourth-shot vaccination against Covid-19, the management of foreign workers at the company.

Reported by Quang Tam – Translated by Ngoc Huynh