Hanoi (VNA)✤ – Seven out of every ten informalworkers did not know about employment policies and more than 40 percent offreelance workers had never heard about voluntary social insurance, accordingto a survey of the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs (ILSSA) andthe International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The outcomes of the survey, which covered Hanoi and thecentral province of Nghe An, were revealed at a workshop on October 6. Of those did know about voluntary social insurance, mostlearned from local authorities (32.3 percent), friends or acquaintances (18.3percent). Few were informed by insurance agencies (8.1 percent). Voluntary social insurance regulations took effect inVietnam in January 2008, aiming to provide insurance for informal sectorworkers, mainly farmers and rural employees. However, only 237,000 people have bought voluntary socialinsurance in the last 10 years, and few of them are workers in the informalsector for whom the safety net was designed. Besides, most voluntary social insurance participantsformerly had compulsory social insurance and they shifted to voluntary as theywere unable to continue to use compulsory social insurance for various reasons. Trinh Thu Nga, director of the Centre for Population, Labourand Employment Study under ILSSA blamed poor communication for the low rate of voluntarysocial insurance uptake. People did not know about it, did not understand it, andthus did not join, Nga said. She added that labourers are willing to pay about 400,000VND a month for insurance, or 7.1 percent of their average income. So the voluntary insurance fee of 154,000 VND per month isnot an issue, according to Nga. She also pointed out that voluntary social insuranceparticipants complained that they have fewer benefits compared to those coveredby compulsory insurance. The voluntary social insurance only covers pensions andsurvivor benefits, while compulsory packages provide protection for a widerange of scenarios, including accident and sickness benefits. At the workshop, the ILO recommended that communicationshould be tailored to target groups for voluntary social insurance. Vietnam should consider adding more benefits to voluntarysocial insurance participants as well as reducing the number of years payinginsurance fees to at least 15 years (the current requirement is at least 20years), it also said. The country aims to have half its workforce covered bysocial insurance by 2020. By the middle of this year, about 13.1 million peoplehad compulsory and voluntary social insurance, accounting for 24.5 percent ofthe workforce. -VNA