A worker completes procedures related to social insurance for residents (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Thenumber of people joining voluntary social insurance decreased sharply dueto the COVID-19 pandemic, said the Vietnam Social Security (VSS).
The information was declared inan online conference with the theme “Developing volunteer social insurance inthe COVID-19 pandemic”, held by the VSS and NhanDan (The People’s) newspaper on May 19.
In the first half of this year,due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many enterprises had to reduce staff and conductsocial distancing. As a result, many workers temporarily stopped work orended contracts, which affected targets related to developing the numberof people joining social insurance this year.
The targets this year are tohave at least 300,000 more people with voluntary social insurance, raising thetotal number of people with social insurance to at least 800,000.
Developing the number of peoplewith social insurance last year was considered one of best points of allactivities of the social security sector. However, since the beginning of thisyear, the development has faced a lot of difficulties because of the pandemic.
Dinh Mai Hanh, deputy head ofthe Receipts Division under the VSS, said uncompleted statistics by April 30showed that about 557,000 people had voluntary social insurance, a reduction of16,000 compared with the end of last year, and down by 11,000 comparedwith March this year.
Hanh said the COVID-19pandemic prevented the sector from developing new participants whereas old oneshad to stop.
Besides, education about theinsurance policies was not implemented as planned.
“Due to social distancing, wecannot work with other sector to organise conferences introducing the policiesto residents,” she said.
Most people with voluntarysocial insurance are informal workers, they did not work during thepandemic so they stopped joining the insurance.
At present, the way toencourage people is via conference held by the Vietnam Post.
Implementing social distancing,the conference was not held as regular this year.
Tran Chi Trung, head of thePortal Financial Services under the Vietnam Post, said COVID-19 prevention andcontrol in Vietnam had recorded significant results and socio-economicactivities returned to normal.
Education for social securitypolicies will be promoted to complete the target of having 300,000 moreparticipants by the end of this year.
It’s scheduled that on May 23,the VSS will work with the Vietnam Post to launch a month-long campaign ofeducation on volunteer social insurance.
The launching ceremony will bebroadcast to different places in 63 provinces and cities across the country.
Hanh said: “We see thatafter difficulties caused by the pandemic, workers will more and moreunderstand the importance of social, health and unemployment insurance.”/.
VNA
