Many new regulations benefit workers
An important new point of the Social Insurance Law 2024 is that employees will be eligible for pension after participating in social insurance for 15 years, instead of 20 years as before.
Article 64 of the 2024 Law on Social Insurance stipulates that employees who have paid compulsory social insurance for 15 years or more when retiring are entitled to pension if they fall into one of the following cases: a) Reaching the retirement age as prescribed in Clause 2, Article 169 of the Labor Code; b) Reaching the retirement age as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 169 of the Labor Code and having a total period of paying compulsory social insurance for 15 years or more when working in a arduous, toxic, dangerous or particularly arduous, toxic, dangerous occupation or job on the list of arduous, toxic, dangerous or particularly arduous, toxic, dangerous occupations or jobs issued by the Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs or working in areas with particularly difficult socio-economic conditions, including working time in areas with a regional allowance coefficient of 0.7 or more before January 1, 2021; c) Be at least 10 years younger than the age specified in Clause 2, Article 169 of the Labor Code and have worked in underground coal mining for 15 years or more as prescribed by the Government; d) Be infected with HIV/AIDS due to occupational accidents while performing assigned tasks.
The Social Insurance Law 2024 also adds a monthly allowance regime for employees who are not eligible for pension and are not old enough to receive social retirement benefits.
Accordingly, Vietnamese citizens who are of retirement age but do not have enough time to pay for pension (less than 15 years of payment) and are not old enough to receive social pension benefits (less than 75 years old), if they do not receive one-time social insurance and do not reserve the time to pay social insurance and have a request, will receive monthly benefits from their own contributions. During the period of receiving monthly benefits, the State budget will pay for health insurance.
Expanding the number of participants in compulsory and voluntary social insurance
One of the new points of the Social Insurance Law 2024 is that many new subjects will be able to participate in social insurance.
They are business owners of registered business households; part-time workers at the commune, village, and residential group levels; regular militia; part-time workers; business managers and cooperative managers who do not receive salaries.
With this regulation, millions of workers will be able to participate in the social security system and have guaranteed income when they reach retirement age; workers working under labor contracts, officials, civil servants and public employees who are temporarily suspending the implementation of labor contracts or work contracts, except in cases where the two parties have an agreement on compulsory social insurance payment during this period, can participate in voluntary social insurance.
The 2024 Social Insurance Law has officially added the right to enjoy sickness and maternity benefits for part-time workers at the commune level instead of only enjoying two benefits: retirement and death as at present.
At the same time, the Social Insurance Law 2024 also adds maternity benefits to the voluntary social insurance policy. Accordingly, voluntary social insurance participants who meet the prescribed conditions are entitled to maternity benefits of VND 2 million for each newborn child, guaranteed by the State budget and employees do not have to pay more than current regulations.
The 2024 Social Insurance Law better ensures maternity benefits for compulsory social insurance participants, such as female workers with "ectopic pregnancy" are entitled to maternity benefits; adds conditions for female workers who take time off for infertility treatment to be entitled to maternity benefits; adds and clarifies the rights of the person requesting surrogacy, the surrogate mother, the rights of the husband of the surrogate mother and the surrogate mother.
The 2024 Social Insurance Law also better ensures the right to participate in and enjoy social insurance for Vietnamese employees working abroad and foreign employees working in Vietnam by adding provisions in cases where international treaties of which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a member have provisions on the time of social insurance participation of employees in Vietnam and abroad are calculated to consider the eligibility for social insurance benefits.
