City supports workers with house rental fees

Workers from the HCM City Social Security give guidance to a resident about social security policy. — VNA/VNS Photo Đinh Hằng

HÀ NỘI — The policy to support workers with house rental fees is based on their needs, is humane and provides a motivation for workers. However, many localities and businesses have encountered difficulties implementing the policy.

After more than a month of implementation, the HCM City Social Insurance scheme supported more than 85,500 employees in over 5,300 enterprises for their house rental fees under the Decision 08/2022/QĐ-TTg issued on March 28 this year by Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính.

But this is not much compared to the initial expectations of the municipal authorities, with 1.2 million employees being beneficiaries of the policies with funds of more than VNĐ2.1 trillion (US$90.1 million).

In the past days, hundreds of direct and indirect questions from enterprises and employees’ representatives revolving around the policy of supporting house renting fees for employees have been answered by the HCM City Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLIS). The answers are replied to in a document and a dialogue between enterprises and the municipal authorities.

Nguyễn Văn Lâm, deputy director of the HCM City DOLIS, said that businesses, whether large, medium or small, needed to be proactive and bold in setting up rental support policies for workers.

If the enterprise has too many employees, the DOLIS has detailed instructions.

Lâm also called on inn owners to create favourable conditions for workers to access the policy to reduce difficulties.

Employees are enterprises’ valuable assets. The fact was proved when enterprises were accompanied by employees to overcome the pandemic.

Therefore, for the policy to be quickly put into practice, each person needs to be honest, straightforward, responsible, respect and trust each other for the common good of the enterprises, employees, the community and the city’s development, Lâm said.

He added that he would propose the HCM City People’s Committee set up four inspection teams to check enterprises’ payment progress.

Key members of the teams will be officials from the municipal people’s committee, DOLIS, the Fatherland Front and organisations representing workers.

The teams will not only inspect but also guide and answer specific problems in providing house renting support for employees.

After the dialogue between enterprises and the municipal authorities, many enterprises have quickly deployed, collected information, classified workers and completed dossiers for submission to social insurance.

Typically, the Datalogic Việt Nam Co. Ltd. in the HCM City High-tech Park already has a database of more than 500 employees. Thus when it needs to complete a document to conduct the house renting a policy, it sends a form to employees to self-register.

As a result, its employees only need one day to complete registration. The company needs one or two days to complete the dossiers for submission to social insurance.

Another example is the Printing No 7 Joint Stock Company in Bình Tân District. Not only does it rush to make documents but also advances money so that workers can pay for house rent.

Trần Võ Công Nhựt, deputy chairman of the company’s trade union, said that the company gave workers three months of allowance in advance.

As for workers, Vương Minh Hòa, who works for the Lecien Co Ltd in the Tân Thuận Processing Zone in District 7, said that he had already completed the procedure for the policy.

“Since the pandemic’s beginning, workers are struggling because their incomes are low and expenses are always increasing. When the policy is implemented, workers and enterprises can quickly complete procedures to benefit from it to reduce difficulties,” he said.

Phan Văn Mến, director of the HCM City Social Security, said that two days after receiving dossiers from enterprises, the unit would begin necessary formalities to give workers allowance for house renting fees. — VNS