Job training in decline
The percentage of businesses offering on-the-job training has declined significantly since last year amid tough economic times, according to a survey released by 1111 Job Bank yesterday.
The survey, conducted by the online employment services provider during the second half of this month, revealed that only 61.3 percent of businesses offer on-the-job training, down from 85.7 percent in a similar survey last year.
Among the businesses taking part in the survey, 66.1 percent said they were in favor of providing assistance to employees in the form of on-the-job training, down slightly from 70.5 percent last year, while 28.9 percent said they had no opinion as they considered skills training to be a personal responsibility.
Only 4.9 percent of respondents said they did not support provision of training, with the main reasons for this including concern over workload, wasting company resources and the inability to offer overtime.
The survey took place online between Oct. 15 and Oct. 28. A total of 525 valid samples were collected.
Savings guarantee until 2010
The Financial Supervisory Commission announced late on Tuesday that a blanket guarantee for the nation’s bank savings announced earlier this month will be in force until the end of next year.
Guaranteed deposits include current and time deposits, foreign currency-denominated deposits, inter-bank lending and negotiable certificates of deposit (NCDs) issued by the central bank.
But the commission said that the government would impose insurance fees on inter-bank lending, to be added to a guarantee fund in the event of bank failures. As supporting measures to the blanket guarantee, the commission said it would reinforce supervision of the domestic banking sector to improve financial transparency.
Banks would be required to disclose assets, liabilities and details of corporate governance, the commission said.
New buyback for Wan Hai
Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運), a local container shipping firm, said yesterday that its board approved a plan to buy back as many as 65.47 million shares on the open market to protect shareholders’ interests.
The firm said in a stock exchange filing that it planned to buy the shares for between NT$8.50 and NT$20.60 each from today until Dec. 29.
This will be Wan Hai’s second buyback. The company’s first buyback took place between Sept. 30 and Thursday last week.
China cuts rates again
China cut key interest rates for the third time in six weeks yesterday in a bid to spur economic growth amid fears of a global recession that would hit its vital exports.
China trimmed the rate on a one-year loan by 0.27 percentage points to 6.66 percent, adding to official efforts to revive slowing economic growth and help struggling exporters.
The country’s central bank also said in a statement that it had lowered the rate on one-year fixed deposits to 3.60 percent from 3.87 percent. Both cuts are effective from today.
The cuts come as the US Federal Reserve and European central banks scramble to cut rates to shore up investor confidence. China already cut rates on Oct. 8 and Sept. 15.
NT dollar makes gains
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.143 to close at NT$33.295.
A total of US$1.535 billion changed hands during the day’s trading.
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