News
Number of workers on unpaid leave falls
The Ministry of Labor (MOL) is reporting 505 less workers on unpaid leave compared to two weeks ago, bringing the total number down to around 7,300.
The manufacturing sector accounted for most of the reductions, at 73%, which is attributed to order recovery in metal machinery, electronics, and others.
The MOL mentioned two companies that saw an uptick in furloughed leave due to reduced orders, namely an electronic component producer and a printing factory in the chemical industry. Despite this, the ministry stressed that since the end of August last year, the overall trend in reduced working hours has been decreasing monthly.
In unrelated employment news, the Fisheries Agency says the local fisheries sector fully supports moves by a Kaohsiung-based company to no longer employ Chinese fishermen to work on Taiwan-registered fishing vessels. The move by Chiang Teng International Enterprise reflects a long-term trend in the sector to move away from reliance on China.
The agency says Taiwan's fisheries sector expects to focus on Southeast Asian countries as a source of migrant fishermen, and the number of Chinese fishers working on Taiwanese fishing boats is behind that from Southeast Asian countries.
Data show that as of the end of last year, there were nearly 300 Chinese fishermen in Taiwan's near-shore fishery industry. That figure was significantly lower than the approximately 9,500 from Indonesia, 1,200 from the Philippines, and around 1,300 from other countries including Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand.
While Taiwan's deep-sea fisheries sector employed some 800 fishermen from China as of the end of last year, that number is overshadowed by the 13,800 from Indonesia and the 5,000 from the Philippines.
