Excess years of social insurance contributions but short of retirement age: Proposal to swap for early retirement

Illustration photo.

At the Workshop on providing comments on the draft Law on Social Insurance (amended), Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Ha - Vice President of the Vinh Phuc Provincial Labor Federation pointed out that currently, many workers start working at a very young age, have enough years of social insurance contributions to receive 75%, but are short of retirement age, so when they retire early, they have to receive a low pension. Therefore, most of them want to compensate for the years of social insurance contributions for the number of years of retirement age.

According to Ms. Ha, this is not only the opinion of workers, but also of civil servants and public employees in administrative agencies.

Therefore, the representative of the Vinh Phuc Provincial Labor Federation proposed that the drafting agency could respond to the wishes of workers, so that those who have more years of contributions and less than the retirement age can still receive 75% of their pension.

Agreeing with the proposal to swap the excess years of social insurance contributions for the missing years of retirement, Ms. Dang Thi Kim Chung - Vice President of the Quang Ninh Provincial Labor Federation said that there are many cases of excess years of contributions and missing retirement age, especially since the retirement age increased according to the provisions of the 2019 Labor Code.

"Previously, if a worker retired early, each year of early retirement would only reduce the monthly pension rate by 1%. Under current regulations, each year of early retirement would be deducted by 2%. Meanwhile, the number of years of social insurance contributions increased to 5 years, which is very disadvantageous for workers," Ms. Chung explained.

Regarding the above opinions and proposals, Mr. Le Dinh Quang - Deputy Head of the Legal Policy Department (Vietnam General Confederation of Labor) said that many cases with 30 years of social insurance participation for women and 35 years for men are entitled to 75% pension, but a percentage of pension is deducted because they are not old enough to retire.

Previously, this issue was not mentioned in policies, but through practice, we found the inadequacies in collecting opinions from workers.

Therefore, in the coming time, management agencies also need to consider and evaluate because it is the legitimate aspiration of workers and to ensure their rights.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Nguyen Duy Cuong - Deputy Director of the Social Insurance Department (Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs) said that these are new issues arising in practice, the responsibility of the Editorial Team will be to receive, synthesize opinions, research and evaluate comprehensively from many perspectives to complete the draft law appropriately.