The Covid-19 pandemic has raised numerous employment law issues on both legislative and practical aspects, such as occupational safety, remote work management, temporary response measures of the enterprise; personnel reduction; negotiation and dialogue in epidemic prevention, and dealing with economic difficulties caused by the epidemic ... Facing these issues, the Faculty of Law, University of Economics and Law (VNU-HCM) cooperates with the Vietnam Labor Research Network (VLRN) held the Webinar Seminar "Covid-19 Pandemic: Impact and Legal Issues in Labor Relations" on the morning of 27th May 2020, through UEL's Zoom system.

The seminar was very honored with the participation of Assoc.Prof. Le Thanh Sang - Director of the Southern Institute of Social Sciences; Ms. Bui Thi Ninh - Head of Office for Employers, VCCI HCMC; Lawyer Vu Ngoc Ha - Director of Legal Consulting Center, Dong Nai Labor Federation; Ph.D. Huynh Thi Ngoc Tuyet - Coordinator of the Southern Labor Research Group; Ph.D. Do Quynh Chi - Director of Research Center for Labor Relations. From the University of Economics and Law, there was the participation of Assoc.Prof. Le Vu Nam - Vice-Rector of University of Economics and Law; Assoc.Prof. Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung - Dean of Faculty of Law, University of Economics and Law. Besides, the webinar participants also include lawyers, human resources specialists, lecturers, and law students.

To begin with, Assoc.Prof. Le Vu Nam - Vice-Rector of University of Economics and Law (VNU-HCM) gave the opening remarks and emphasized that the organization of seminar with labor-related topics is one of the current issues. Following that, Dr. Doan Thi Phuong Diep - Faculty of Law, University of Economics and Law had a speech about "Reducing personnel due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic: options, legal consequences, and appeals". Dr. Diep has detailed the solutions for terminating labor contracts prescribed in the Labor Code (terminating due to force majeure, structural changes, and contract termination agreement ...) and corresponding legal consequences; assess the advantages and disadvantages of each solution; unclear or unreasonable points from which to make recommendations for the improvement of the labor law.

Following the program, Dr. Do Hai Ha - China Research Center, Oxford University also shared about "The Covid-19 pandemic: An opportunity to look back on the labor legislation". Dr. Ha has reviewed the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on labor relations on a variety of dimensions, such as labor-management; occupational safety and sanitation; personnel restructuring; adjusting salary and bonus policies; negotiation and dialogue; and labor disputes and strikes.

After the sharing of the two speakers, the guests attending the seminar had very enthusiastic sharing and discussions around the issues raised by the two speakers. Besides, Dr. Do Quynh Chi also shared the actual survey data related to the reduction of personnel from the perspective of enterprises and employees.

At the end of the seminar, Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung thanked two speakers and guests. On behalf of the Organizing Committee, Assoc.Prof. Nhung hoped that the next seminars would also be successfully organized and the content would also be related to interesting social issues such as this one.