Proposal to increase retirement age for men to 62 and for women to 58

Due to many different opinions on increasing the retirement age, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs submitted two options to the Government for comments.

The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs is drafting a Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Labor Code, including some notable contents such as: the right of employees to unilaterally terminate labor contracts; minimum wage; increase in overtime hours; retirement age...

The proposal to increase the retirement age does not cause significant disruption to labor allocation and employment.

Regarding the increase in retirement age, according to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, in this revision, there are still many opinions suggesting to increase the retirement age for reasons such as: the average life expectancy of Vietnamese people in recent years has increased; our country's population is moving from the golden population period to the aging population period, in the future there will be a shortage of young labor force; if the retirement age is kept as it is now, the pension and death benefit funds will not be guaranteed in the long term; ensuring non-discrimination in retirement age between male and female workers to comply with international standards such as the Cedaw Convention, ILO conventions...

According to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, in this revision, many opinions were received suggesting increasing the retirement age. However, due to many different opinions on this issue, the draft Law is currently presenting 2 options in Article 187 for comments:

Option 1:keep the current age of 60 for men and 55 for women.

Option 2:Increase the retirement age for men to 62 and for women to 58, increasing by 3 months each year to ensure that the increase in retirement age is "smooth" and does not cause strong disruption to labor arrangement and use.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Bui Sy Loi, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on Social Affairs, emphasized three key points that need to be considered when increasing the retirement age. These are the need to base on the health of workers; socio-economic development conditions; and the biggest social pressure today is the relationship between labor supply and labor demand.

According to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, increasing the retirement age requires a roadmap. If the National Assembly approves this plan in 2017, it will begin implementation in 2020, to have a process to assess all impacts on employment, the labor market, health, labor productivity as well as the psychology of workers and businesses.

Normally, countries increase by about 3-4 months each year, some countries even increase by only 2 months each year. This is a calculation process that must combine both science and practice to come up with appropriate solutions to present to the National Assembly.

It is expected that the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs will submit the draft Law to the Government in January 2017; submit it to the National Assembly's review agency and the National Assembly Standing Committee in March 2017; and submit the draft Law to the National Assembly in April 2017./.

According to VOV