The Prime Minister asks leaders of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs to clarify eight hot issues, including the planned retirement age hike and child sexual abuse.

This is one of the contents at a meeting of the working group of the Prime Minister chaired by Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung, with the purpose of checking the performance of the labor ministry.

The labor ministry has not yet done three tasks assigned by the Government and the Prime Minister. Since these three tasks require the participation and comments of many agencies and units, they have been overdue.

In early 2016, the labor ministry was given 483 tasks, of which 373 have since been completed, 107 have not yet been fulfilled but have not missed the deadlines either, and three have been overdue as mentioned above, the ministry reports.

The Minister-Chairman of the Government Office said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc through the working group requested the ministry’s leaders to clarify eight issues that the ministry was entrusted with.

The first is the policy towards people with merit. There are still many applicants for entitlement to this policy but they have not become beneficiaries or fully enjoyed it.

The circumstances of documents being falsified and officials at the grassroots taking advantage of their power to make personal gains remain. The ministry is urged to conduct comprehensive evaluations and propose basic modifications of the policy towards people with merit.

The second issue is that vocational training has been invested with great budgets but is not yet effective enough to meet expectations and development requirements in the era of industrialization and modernization.

The third is the issue of labor, employment and wage. Unemployment and underemployment among young people and university graduates need to be solved.

“The problem of labor and employment needs a high consensus of workers and people to ensure efficiency when issued. It is proposed that the ministry carefully study the retirement age scheme and issues related to the social insurance fund,” said Minister Dung.

Fourth, child abuse is causing serious public concern, so the labor ministry needs to work out preventive measures. This socially aggravating, ethically related issue has been detected in many localities such as Vung Tau, HCMC, Hanoi, Vinh Phuc and Ca Mau.

The fifth is the management of drug rehab facilities since the situation is now very complex. A court decision is a must-have to send someone to a detoxification facility, so there must be many changes in this process.

The sixth issue is occupational safety. The labor ministry is asked to work out solutions to labor accidents.

In 2016, nearly 8,000 labor accidents occurred nationwide, killing 862 workers and injuring more than 1,900 others, according to the statistics of the Department of Work Safety under the labor ministry.

The seventh problem concerns labor export, from the management of labor export companies, workers to localities where cases of laborers fleeing have been recorded. The Government requests the labor ministry to pay attention to the inspection and examination of such companies and the situation of Vietnamese workers abroad to timely give protection and make intervention when they meet with risks.

Finally, Minister Mai Tien Dung said this year would be the 70th anniversary of the Remembrance Day, a very meaningful holiday to express gratitude to those people with merit. The Prime Minister suggests the ministry soon propose organization of celebrations, motivating the society to care for and be grateful to the people with merit.

SGT