By June 2026, Lam Dong province had more than 3,000 units delaying and evading social insurance, health insurance, and unemployment insurance for 3 months or more, with a total amount of 181.6 billion VND. Of which, the amount of late payment in the business sector is about 167 billion VND.
Besides the worrying figures, the report of the Department of Home Affairs of Lam Dong province also pointed out a new problem in identifying the causes of social insurance debt: Some businesses use the 10.5% amount paid by employees themselves to supplement business capital.
For a long time, the situation of late payment has often been explained by reasons such as businesses lacking orders, business losses or financial imbalances.
But findings in Lam Dong show that there are cases where businesses proactively retain the money deducted from workers' salaries to rotate capital, instead of having to resort to legal borrowing channels.
The appropriation of social insurance money by workers is of course not only in Lam Dong.
From the beginning of 2026 to now, Lao Dong Newspaper has had many series of articles reflecting that many businesses are still operating but slow, evading social insurance contributions for a long time in Hanoi, Thanh Hoa, Quang Ngai, Da Nang...
These cases show that in a part of businesses, insurance money to be paid to employees has been kept for a long time, becoming an illegal source of capital to serve other priorities of the business.
This occupation puts workers in a very disadvantageous situation. They have lost a portion of their income, but their social insurance participation may not be fully recorded.
When it is necessary to resolve sickness, maternity, unemployment, occupational accident or retirement benefits, employees may be delayed, or may not even be entitled to benefits because businesses still owe payments.
If a business operates ineffectively, loses its ability to pay or is dissolved, employees are also at risk of having to pursue debt for many years. They are both reluctant to become people who "borrow" money from businesses, and have to bear the consequences of business decisions that they are not allowed to participate in.
Faced with this situation, Lam Dong proposed not to consider honoring and commending; not to consider allowing participation in bidding and project investment for units that are late in payment or do not participate in social insurance as prescribed.
The locality also proposed to supplement sanctions of temporary suspension of exit and freezing of bank accounts for employers who evade payment or have prolonged debts.
These proposals are necessary. However, strict handling is one aspect. The other aspect is to help workers detect early the company's late payment to promptly protect their rights.
The 2024 Law on Social Insurance has stipulated that participants are provided with information about social insurance contributions by the social insurance agency periodically every month via electronic means.
The VssID application currently also allows employees to look up the participation process, contribution level and late payment time.
But to be even more effective, this information provision needs to have an additional function to warn employees and request handling when businesses incur late payments.
Along with that, management agencies need to compare data on labor, wages, taxes and social insurance to identify early units with abnormal signs. Do not wait for debt accumulation for many months, businesses lose solvency before inspecting and handling.
Capital difficulties must be resolved by businesses through legal mobilization channels. Social insurance money deducted from salaries is social security money of employees, absolutely cannot become revolving capital of businesses.
