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This is one of the solutions proposed by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) to restore the labour market amid the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to statistics from MOLISA, in the first half of 2021, 12.8 million people were affected by the pandemic, an increase of 40.6% over the same period in 2020. By the third quarter of 2021, this number increased to 28.2 million people. About 4.7 million people lost their jobs; 14.7 million people had to temporarily stop or suspend production and business; 12 million people had their working hours cut or were forced to take time off or rotate work; 18.9 million workers had their income reduced; and the number of employed people decreased by nearly 2.7 million.
The rate of underemployed and unemployed workers increased sharply, of which the unemployment rate in the working age was 3.98%, the highest in the past 10 years. In urban areas with industrial zones and key economic regions, which employ a lot of labour and contribute a lot to economic development, the unemployment rate has reached a record level for urban areas, at 5.54%.
Restoring the labour market and ensuring jobs for workers is an urgent task in 2022. According to MOLISA Minister Dao Ngoc Dung, social rehabilitation, especially in welfare issues, is one of the 5 important tasks. In the rehabilitation effort, the key task is the recovery of the labour market.
In order to restore the labour market, it is necessary to focus on implementing 5 support policies, including lending capital to workers to develop production, with loans up to hundreds of millions of dong. The second is to deploy a package of VND6.6 trillion in support cash for employees.
The third support policy was assigned to the Bank for Social Policies to use the largest amount ever to support businesses with loans to build dormitories, houses for workers to buy or rent at very low interest rates.
"In addition, the State budget will also deduct an amount of money to give workers low-interest loans to buy houses at a cheap price. This is a solution to ensure a minimum safety floor in housing for workers," Minister Dung emphasized./.