What do businesses get when employing people with disabilities?

Enterprises employing 10 or more disabled workers, or employing more than 30% disabled workers, will receive priority and policy support.

Many middle-aged workers are unemployed and struggling to find new jobs. Photo taken at the 2025 Career Counseling Day - Illustration: CONG TRIEU

Many comments and opinions were raised by Tuoi Tre Online readers around the article "Haunted by unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling to find a job in middle age". In addition to the comments about middle-aged workers being fired by businesses "as an inevitable thing", many people believe that there should be policies to protect older workers, especially those with disabilities.

Many incentives, corporate tax exemption, loan support

Reader DucNguyen said that developed countries have created a list of jobs that prioritize older people. Only when a job or position cannot recruit older workers, will businesses recruit young people. Support policies for businesses that maintain the use of a large number of workers near retirement age are also very clear, such as tax reductions.

"In Australia, I also know that the company I used to work for would be exempted from hiring people with disabilities and given priority to hiring foreign workers with a faster process. Everyone tries to maintain jobs for people of an age who are easily abandoned by businesses," reader DucNguyen wrote.

From the above issue, Tuoi Tre Online had a quick exchange with lawyer Nguyen Dang Tu (Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, TriLaw LLC, Ho Chi Minh City).

Lawyer Nguyen Dang Tu (Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, TriLaw LLC, Ho Chi Minh City)

According to lawyers, there are currently no regulations on giving priority to businesses employing elderly or middle-aged workers.

However, there are regulations giving priority to businesses employing 10 or more disabled workers, or employing more than 30% of disabled workers.

Article 9 and Article 10 of Decree 28/2012/ND-CP stipulate preferential policies that enterprises, administrative agencies, and public service units that employ people with disabilities in stable work may enjoy, depending on the case.

Specifically, production and business establishments employing 30% or more of their total workforce as disabled people as prescribed in Article 34 of the Law on Persons with Disabilities are entitled to the following preferential policies:

a) Financial support for improving working conditions and environment suitable for people with disabilities according to regulations of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs . The level of support depends on the rate of people with disabilities working stably at production and business establishments, the level of disability of workers and the scale of production and business establishments according to regulations of the Prime Minister.

The Chairman of the People's Committee of a province or centrally-run city (hereinafter referred to as the provincial-level People's Committee) decides on the level of funding to support the improvement of working conditions and environment for production and business establishments employing 30% or more of the total number of employees as people with disabilities;

b) Exemption from corporate income tax according to the provisions of tax law;

c) Preferential loans for production and business development projects from the Social Policy Bank.

Loan conditions, loan term, loan amount and loan interest rate shall comply with current regulations applicable to loan projects for job creation;

d) Priority in leasing land, premises, and water surfaces according to the provisions of law;

d) Exemption from land, premises, and water surface rent for production and business establishments employing 70% or more of their employees as disabled people. Reduction of 50% of land, premises, and water surface rent for production and business establishments employing 30% to less than 70% of their employees as disabled people.

When dismissing older workers, businesses must notify the Provincial People's Committee 30 days in advance.

According to lawyer Nguyen Dang Tu, the current provisions of the Labor Code do not have any provisions on the distinction between signing or terminating labor contracts with older, middle-aged or younger workers. It is only generally called signing or terminating labor contracts with workers.

However, there are currently many cases where businesses intentionally terminate labor contracts with older workers, only retaining younger workers.

"Discrimination in terminating labor contracts between older and younger people is not permitted by law. However, many businesses deliberately "circumvent the law", putting pressure on and terminating labor contracts of many older workers," lawyer Dang Tu informed.

According to regulations, when terminating a labor contract with an employee due to changes in structure, technology or for economic reasons that put many employees at risk of losing their jobs or having to quit, the employer must develop and implement a labor use plan according to the provisions of Article 44 of the Labor Code.

The dismissal of an employee shall only be carried out after consultation with the employee representative organization at the facility where there is an employee representative organization at the facility of which the employee is a member, and 30 days' notice shall be given to the provincial People's Committee and the employee.

Accordingly, if there is a case of dismissal of many elderly workers, it must also be reported to the Provincial People's Committee, and discussed with the grassroots trade union representing the workers.

"In case of detecting irregularities or injustice in dismissal or layoff, the grassroots trade union or the provincial People's Committee can also intervene and give comments. This means that the trade union and the provincial People's Committee also have the responsibility to grasp information and protect vulnerable (older) workers, ensuring fairness in mass layoffs of workers," the lawyer informed.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/su-dung-lao-dong-la-nguoi-khuet-tat-doanh-nghiep-duoc-gi-20250215175204476.htm