More companies seek temporary employees

The demand for dispatched workers has surged significantly, in the wake of the revised Laborers' Pension Law (勞工退休金條例) to be implemented in July, market watchers said yesterday.

Many expect dispatched employees, also known as temps, to bring more flexibility to the nation's labor market.

"Making use of flexible labor is a trend that will overthrow the concept of life-time employment," Joseph Lee (李誠), a human resources professor at National Central University's Graduate Institute of Human Resources Management, said at a press conference yesterday.

Cost-cutting

By using temporary workers, companies can cut costs for recruiting, training and evaluating personnel, and reduce the risk of hiring incompetent employees, which allows companies to focus on improving their core-competence to compete with rivals in the era of narrow margins, Lee added.

According to the Web-based 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行), vacancies for dispatched employees have climbed in recent years, with current demand having doubled from more than a year ago.

outsourcing

A recent poll conducted by the job bank also showed that 29 percent of enterprises are considering outsourcing part of their operations after July.

Most companies are in need of temporary workers for tasks such as general administration, sales, customer service, technical support and personnel administration, according to Steven Su (蘇宏文), manager of 104 Job Bank's dispatched business division.

Many people have misconceptions about temporary work, considering it to be unstable, lower-paid and having poor benefits, Lee said.

Instead, people can use the opportunity of working at different companies to accumulate experience and make a long-term career plan, he said.

Alice Chou (周岱宜), manager of Bank SinoPac's (建華銀行) human resources division, said the bank started using dispatched workers four years ago and now employs about 168 temps, in addition to its 2,100 rank-and-file staff.

Benefits offered

Chou said that benefits, including health and labor insurance, offered to temps are similar to regular staff.

"Some dispatched employees even get higher pay than regular workers with their skills and performance," Chou said. "Besides, hardworking, quality temps also have the chance to become regular staff."

One problem Bank SinoPac has with dispatched workers is high turnover, as many young temps leave their posts if they spot new job opportunities, Chou said.

To enhance competitiveness from dispatched employment, people should be open-minded to learn as much as they can from every company they are sent to work for, which is a way to develop more professional skills, he said.