Celebrate Tet with unemployment benefits

At 8 am on the first day of the week, the Employment Service Center (Cau Giay district) was packed with people who were going to apply for unemployment benefits. Mr Cong (character changed name) sat in the back row, next to a colleague. “How many years of working together will now receive unemployment together. It’s also fun to think about,” the man said and said he and his friends had been together for 9 months to collect unemployment benefits on the 25th of every month.

Mr. Cong filed for unemployment benefits on the morning of Jan. 25. Photo: Phan Duong.

They worked at a packaging company in Hoang Mai District. Last year, the company restructured, staff and wages were all cut, but what made him sad was that the new management mechanism made many people unsatisfied, many people were made redundant.

Having worked for the company for 19 years, he remembers exactly every doorknob that has lost a screw. There are colleagues who were present in the important stages of his life: marriage, childbirth, promotion, filial piety… “One day, while I was making a teapot, I suddenly remembered the name “old friend”. work months before,” he said.

Cong also thought about it and decided to ask for a leave of absence at the end of this year. The 45-year-old, who has two children in first and last year, plans to have a job after Tet. But the Covid-19 appeared in Vietnam on 28 Tet. The pandemic ruined all his plans to find a new job. From February to May, he was mostly at home. The car was bought in installments late last year, intending to drive a tech car but lying in a corner for three months he had to pay it off to avoid further debt.

One morning in June, Cong was called in for an interview for the first time. That day, a man about five feet tall walks into a building in West Lake and applies for the position of assistant in the human resources department of a real estate company. His opponent is made up of five candidates, all under the age of 27. I heard them say many real estate terms in English, the person shared that he worked in a foreign company and changed jobs dozens of times. Suddenly he realized he was lost.

This interview, like the interviews of the following months, repeated the scenario “we will announce the results later”. The other thing was that he was becoming more and more apathetic. “I’m neither sad nor disappointed, because I know my weakness is my age,” Cong said.

What he finds comforting is that he receives 9 million dong in unemployment benefits every month. This money is a “savior” to contribute with his wife to the family expenses. Normally, he and his wife spend 30 to 40 million dong on Tet, including 10 million for peaches and kumquats. “This year, half of my income was broken, must be stingy,” the man adjusted his glasses with a sigh.

Cong is not an uncommon case. The General Statistics Office once said that the country as a whole had 32.1 million people negatively affected by Covid-19.

Mr. Dung, 50, Hai Ba Trung District, formerly deputy manager of an airline insurance company in Ninh Binh, had his salary reduced, leading to his resignation. Like Mr. Cong, Mr. Dung determined that “it is difficult for me to find a job at my age”. Photo: Phan Duong.

“People win big and lose big. My wife and I run a small toad shop and we also get beaten up,” said Phan Thi Thanh (Bac Tu Liem district), while waiting his turn at the Employment Service Center on the morning of January 26.

This time, in previous years, it was the “harvest” of the couple. Mr. Phu – her husband – has a bread cart and snacks on the old town. Before and after Tet, the number of visitors, especially foreigners, is heavy. Around this time, Ms. Thanh also quit her job at the company and moved to help her husband. There are days when they sell 300 to 400 rolls. Each Tet culture can generate tens of millions of profits.

This year, their income is only “half of last year”. The epidemic forced Mr. Phu to “stay at home” for three months. When the situation calmed down, he reopened the store but could not sell 10 cakes a day, so he had to close the store. For four months he has been a shipper.

And Ms. Thanh has been laid off since June because the company downsized. Since then, she has been looking for a small business. The interior reduces expenses and maximizes savings. In July, too poor, the couple released a savings account of 60 million to spend. By November, the money had run out.

In the coming days, receiving 2,780,000 VND in unemployment benefits, Ms. Thanh plans to spend 500,000 VND to buy new clothes for her two children, the rest to buy food. As usual, every year the siblings give 3 million to their grandparents, give them big peach trees, western wine and lucky money to each 1 million. This year, the account will no longer be available. “Grandparents will probably understand for me,” Thanh said.

Due to the impact of Covid-19, the urban unemployment rate was the highest in the last 10 years. Photo: Phan Duong.

Ms Nguyen Thu Ha (Dai Mo) is also counting the days until she collects 2.7 million VND in unemployment benefits – usually after a week of reporting. You figured out what you’re going to spend it on. “Give the mother-in-law 2 million to buy salty food for Tet, the rest will buy sweets, but I’m afraid it’s not enough.”

In recent years, they have always tried to spend Tet on about 15 million dong in bounties from their spouses. This year, Ha, who worked as a janitor for a Japanese cosmetics company, lost her job in April and her husband, a copper smelter, also lost his salary for 4 months. Since then, money worries have always been on his mind. The woman with two children remembers each number correctly: 2,080,000 VND for private lessons for the eldest, 940,000 VND for kindergarten lessons for the youngest. “Without it, I really don’t know how I would have done,” she said.

During the months of waiting for a job, Ha helped her sister-in-law sell vegetables at Dai Mo Market, earning money to come and go to buy food every day. Early last month she had a stomach ache, her husband urged her to go to the doctor, but she said, “Lay down for a while and you’ll be fine.” On the fourth day, he had to quit his job to take his wife to the hospital. That day, Ha was diagnosed with a stomach disease, costing VND 1.8 million. All the way home, she grumbled to her husband, “Let me be quiet.”

A year of unemployment will certainly have to “tighten up” Tet spending. His family will be content with peaches or kumquats, buy new clothes for the whole family for about 2 million VND. “The couple planned to buy a new altar this year but failed,” she said.

After 10 a.m., the screen showed the number 2244. Mr. Cong headed for the door, sequentially filling out two A4 pages of the unemployment benefit application. This is the last month to take advantage of this amount, but what concerns Mr. Cong is how to maintain insurance to take advantage of the pension plan. Most of his colleagues have chosen to be independent. He still has the ambition to go to work, but does not know if the opportunity is still open to him.

After only five minutes, he and his colleague finished filling in the information. They got out of the car, each going in the same direction. Cong said to follow: “Have a happy Têt!”.

Phan Duong – Vnexpress