Assessing the elderly correctly in the context of population aging
The current 2013 Law on Employment does not have specific regulations related to employees who are elderly in borrowing capital to create jobs or receiving support for training and vocational skills assessment.
The 2025 Law on Employment, effective from January 1, 2026, adds content on supporting the elderly in job creation, training, and issuance of vocational skills certificates.
Evaluating this content, Mr. Le Quang Trung - former Deputy Director in charge of the Department of Employment - commented that elderly workers are a group of people who are trained and have skills and work experience; understand and comply with the law; always desire to work and contribute...
In our country today, the number of elderly people is large (about 16 million people with more than 7 million elderly people directly working, producing and doing business; more than 50% of elderly people are aged 60-69; more than 19,9% of people aged 70-79 are still working, generating income), many elderly people have been successfully starting a business, affirming their position and role...
The new content in the revised Law on Employment shows concern, recognition and assessment of the employment issue for the elderly in the context of population aging so that they can create jobs and participate in the labor market on their own. This is a real economic problem and a social problem. If we do well, we can take advantage of and exploit the human resources that the labor market needs for socio-economic development, said Mr. Trung.
Sharing the same view, Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong - former Director of the Institute of Social Labor Science said that if the revised Law on Employment is effectively implemented, it can create positive changes for the elderly - especially those who were managers, experts, and retired intellectuals.
Outstanding impacts
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, taking advantage of older workers will have some outstanding impacts such as: Unleashing the potential of the older workforce; creating conditions for startups and knowledge transfer; promoting experience and accumulation of knowledge; contributing to improving the quality of social human resources; reducing social security pressure and increasing proactiveness; creating income, improving quality of life; promoting social integration; spreading impact in the family and the community.
In particular, an important content is to support elderly workers to participate in the labor market, which will help reduce social security pressure and increase proactiveness. Instead of depending entirely on pensions or subsidies, the elderly can proactively generate income and improve their quality of life. This also contributes to reducing the burden on the State budget in the long term.
Along with the positive impacts, Ms. Lan Huong recommended some challenges of efforts to help elderly workers participate in the labor market.
Limits in health and fitness; financial risks if there is no clear plan; no mechanism to assess skills suitable for the characteristics of the elderly; difficulties in accessing administrative procedures; lack of a suitable mechanism to assess borrowing capacity are difficulties that we must see, have proactive solutions to let the humane policies of the revised Employment Law penetrate deeper into life, promoting value in practice, Ms. Lan Huong emphasized.
Elderly people are allowed to borrow capital to create jobs and be granted national vocational skills certificates
Article 13 of the 2025 Law on Employment stipulates the policy of job support for elderly workers as follows:
- Elderly people are allowed to borrow capital to support job creation, maintenance and expansion according to the provisions of this Law.
- Receive support for training, fostering to improve vocational skills, supporting participation in assessment, and issuing national vocational skills certificates according to the provisions of the Law on Employment.
- Based on the socio-economic conditions of each period and the ability to balance the budget, the State has policies to support job creation, retraining, and vocational training for workers to adapt to population aging.
In addition, Clause 3, Article 22 of the Law on Employment also lists the elderly as one of the subjects receiving State support when participating in vocational training and skills assessment.
