Government ponders extending job-creation program

The government is considering extending its job-creation program for another six months to the end of the year, Hale Liu (劉三琦), head of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), said yesterday.

Liu made the remarks while fielding questions at the Legislative Yuan concerning unemployment.

The agency yesterday reported that the nation's unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years last month as the economy continued to improve.

Liu said that the unemployment rate was 4.99 percent last year, and it is estimated that it will drop to 4.5 percent at best this year. With the changing industrial structure and businesses becoming larger, he said that it might be impossible to cut the employment rate to below 4.5 percent.

As the job-creation project is only scheduled to run until June, legislators expressed concern that the unemployment rate could rise again after the project stops.

Liu said that the Council of Labor Affairs is planning to extend the project to the end of the year, saying that this would incur an additional cost of NT$7 billion to NT$8 billion (US$211.48 million to US$241.69 million) to the government, which he said could be financed from the employment stabilization fund, and that financing should not be a problem.

Officials said that the labor affairs council was mapping out related measures to help those who are unemployed for an extended period.

They said that they will initially use NT$400 million to help the long-term jobless by subsidizing employers so that they can learn some working skills.

They stressed that the measure is aimed at providing substantive assistance to the jobless for their future employment, and not as a subsidy "for a post," or to reduce employers' labor costs.

Officials also said that when providing subsidies to employers, the council would take into consideration the "training and substantive assistance extended to the hired laborers."

According to the DGBAS, the eligible workforce rose by 9,000 last month from the month before and was up 129,000 from a year earlier to 10.16 million.

Last month's labor participation ratio was 57.44 percent, unchanged from the month before and up 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier, it said.