Representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) said yesterday the newly passed Laborers' Pension Law (
The law, passed by the legislature last Friday and to take effect in July next year, requires employers to direct 6 percent of employees' salaries per month -- up from 2 percent -- to an individual retirement labor pension fund.
The new system allows employees to continue to build up the fund even if they change jobs, and draw a monthly pension after they retire.
It is estimated that Taiwanese companies will have to set aside as much as NT$2.6 trillion to top up their retirement reserve funds for employees within five years, according to estimates by the General Chamber of Commerce (全國商總).
Theodore Huang (
Huang made the remarks after the association's annual members' meeting yesterday.
After receiving a petition from the association, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday promised that Council of Labor Affairs Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊) and Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) would exchange views with the business community.
Chen Po-chih (陳博志), chairman of Taiwan Thinktank (台灣智庫), said the bill's passage may harm the nation's economy.
Chen, who was in charge of discussing the bill with business when he was chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, said that the government had previously agreed to a grace period of three years for businesses to top up pension accounts.
The lack of a grace period may lead to outsourcing and layoffs, Chen said.
He said the new system, in effect, raises labor costs by 6 percent, which is equivalent to appreciating the New Taiwan dollar by nearly 3 percent.
Chen said he can only cross his fingers and hope that the economic recovery is strong enough for businesses to continue to perform.
He said the pension funds should be used to refinance domestic investments and help the economy.
Wu Chung-chi (
Those who failed to allocate pension funds for their employees in the past -- 448,000 of the more than 500,000 SMEs in the country, according to the Council of Labor Affairs -- are required to make up the amount for their current staff based on their work period with the companies within five years of the law taking effect.
As a result, employers may lower salaries to compensate for the outlay, Wu said.
Joseph Hsu (許繼峰), an associate professor at National Chung Cheng University's Institute of Labor Research, said businesses needn't worry too much, however, because there may be ways to reduce the law's impact.
"We've made several major changes to labor policies to ensure labor interests in the past, but employers can always find loopholes," Hsu said. "The heavier fine to be imposed on the violators is of no use."
The new law stipulates that employers that fail to contribute 6 percent of salaries to employees' pension funds will be fined NT$20,000 to NT$50,000 per month per employee.
Hsu said the government lacks the manpower to inspect the huge number of SMEs, and that employees tend not to report wrongdoing for the sake of their careers.
On the other hand, employers may transfer the burden to employees by reducing their salaries, Hsu said.
"Eventually, I think workers will suffer more than SMEs," Hsu said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained