The Vietnamese government made a rapid move to introduce social protection measures as a response to the COVID‐19 crisis, among others wage subsidies for formal sector workers, cash transfers for poor and near poor households, current social assistance beneficiaries, and informal economy workers. Complementary measures were also taken to reduce the burden on businesses affected by the crisis, such as wage credits and postponement of social security contributions. More efforts to protect jobs and workers are important to ensure an equitable sharing of risk and burden of the crisis.