Vietnamplus

Loans for temporary leave pay are expected to help firms retain skilled workers and mitigate the number of laid-off workers triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the current solutions mainly focus on pandemic-hit workers and people, businesses have not received support apart from loans.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a bailout package worth 62 trillion VND (2.66 billion USD) to support people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic nationwide.

The number of recipients of unemployment benefits nationwide rose by 9.11 percent to 378,000 people during the first quarter of 2020 as a large amount of businesses have been forced to suspend operation or go bankrupt by the wide-spreading novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Vietnam has recorded continuous expansion of unemployment insurance coverage over the last 10 years with the number of people under this scheme approximating 13 million at present.

As of August, only 15,000 of the 330,000 people eligible for unemployment allowances had enrolled in vocational training programmes, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.