To ensure that unemployment insurance reaches the right people, preventing wrong policy benefits

Many cases of receiving unemployment benefits not in accordance with regulations, must be recovered

After more than three months of receiving unemployment benefits (TCTN), Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh (in Xuan Dinh ward, Hanoi) signed a labor contract at a new business.

According to regulations, as soon as you have a job, you must notify the functional agency to terminate unemployment benefits.

However, due to not fulfilling the declaration obligation, he continued to receive unemployment benefits for another two months. Only when functional agencies compared the data, was the wrongly received allowance discovered and requested repayment.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh shared: "I think that the allowance has been resolved, so I will receive it for the entire benefit period. When the business signs a labor contract and pays social insurance (BHXH), the functional agency checks the data, I have to return the amount of money received that is not in accordance with regulations.

Ms. Dinh Thi Theu (Noi Bai commune, Hanoi) is a similar case. After quitting her job at a company headquartered in Hanoi, she completed procedures to receive unemployment benefits.

Two months later, she was recruited for a probationary job at another company. Because she thought that when she had not signed an official contract, she was not considered to have a job, she still received unemployment benefits monthly. After the data was compared, she received a notice that she had to return the wrongly received amount.

In the process of resolving unemployment insurance benefits, functional agencies recorded that many workers (NLĐ) have signed new labor contracts, participated in compulsory social insurance at other businesses, but still continue to receive unemployment benefits.

There are also cases of late notification of employment status, leading to the occurrence of wrongly received money and having to be recovered.

It can be seen that unemployment insurance is an important social security policy, supporting workers when they lose their jobs and creating conditions for them to return to the labor market soon. However, the reality of resolving regimes shows that there are still "loopholes" in management, especially the situation of workers who have jobs but do not declare them and continue to receive allowances.

The fact that data between agencies is not fully interconnected also makes the detection and handling of many cases have to be carried out after the regime has been resolved.

In Can Tho, in May 2026, the City Employment Service Center received 3,825 applications for unemployment benefits, resolving 3,027 eligible cases. Through review, the unit recovered more than 87.9 million VND from 22 cases of improper benefits.

In Ho Chi Minh City, in the first 7 months of 2026, the City Employment Service Center coordinated with the Social Insurance agency to review and recover unemployment benefits from nearly 1,140 cases of improperly receiving benefits, with a total amount of more than 10 billion VND.

Applying technology to prevent violations

According to Dr. Pham Ngoc Toan - Director of the Information - Analysis, Strategic Forecast and Public Services Center (Ministry of Home Affairs), one of the reasons for this situation is that data for management is still slow.

Employees may have new jobs while information about social insurance participation at the new unit has not been updated simultaneously with data for unemployment insurance settlement. In addition, the labor market is changing rapidly, while employees may be slow to notify when the employment situation changes.

Dr. Pham Ngoc Toan said that the current problem is not the lack of data, but fragmented data. Information about employees is managed in many systems, but has not been connected to be able to check and warn promptly.

Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen data connections between agencies implementing unemployment insurance policies and social insurance agencies, and at the same time, gradually connect with relevant data sources.

When data is updated and compared in a timely manner, cases with abnormalities can be detected earlier, instead of waiting until the allowance has been paid before conducting a review.

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