Research to increase retirement age for women to 58, men to 62

Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs Pham Minh Huan said that the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs is studying the possibility of increasing the retirement age in the revision of the Labor Code to be submitted to the National Assembly in 2017. The retirement age for women will increase to 58 and for men to 62, which was proposed in the revision of the Social Insurance Law in 2014, is one of the options that will be studied for proposal.

This information was given at the workshop summarizing 3 years of implementing the 2012 Labor Code organized by the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs on September 21 in Hanoi.

Deputy Minister Pham Minh Huan commented that Vietnam is in a special period between the aging process and the golden population process. Therefore, the issue of utilizing human resources, ensuring employment and the issue of social insurance fund security are three parallel axes. In this revision of the Labor Law, the drafting committee will calculate and study the roadmap for gradually adjusting the retirement age to submit to the National Assembly.

Pension payment. (Illustration photo: Minh Quyet/VNA)

Revealing more about the options for increasing the retirement age, Deputy Minister Pham Minh Huan said that not only is there an option to increase the retirement age in the draft Law on Social Insurance 2014, but other options will also be updated and considered, including the option to adjust the retirement age to ensure equality between men and women at 60 years old.

“The option of increasing the retirement age for men to 62 years old and for women to 58 years old is one of the options. However, increasing the retirement age will also need to be divided into occupations. For heavy and toxic occupations, the retirement age will not be extended,” said Deputy Minister Pham Minh Huan.

Regarding the matter of increasing the retirement age, which has been presented to the National Assembly twice but not approved, Deputy Minister Pham Minh Huan said that the story of increasing the retirement age will greatly affect the job market, so to avoid too great an impact, it will be increased gradually according to a roadmap, maybe 3-4 months a year or 3-4 years or even 5 years to increase by 1 year.

It is expected that the first draft of amendments and supplements to the 2012 Labor Code will be officially announced for comments on October 31. The draft will be submitted to the National Assembly for comments at the 3rd session in May 2017 and approved at the 4th session in October 2017./.

Currently, Article 187 of the 2012 Labor Code stipulates that employees who meet the conditions on social insurance payment period as prescribed by law are entitled to pension when men are 60 years old and women are 55 years old.

Employees may retire earlier than the working age if their ability to work is reduced; they do particularly heavy, toxic, or dangerous work; they work in mountainous, remote, border, or island areas on the list prescribed by the Government and can retire at a lower age.

Workers with high technical expertise, workers in management positions and some other special cases can retire at a higher age but not more than 5 years later than the regulation.

According to Vietnamplus