Wed, Feb 17, 2010 page6

• CEPD calls for developing service sector, green jobs

  • By Ted Yang / STAFF REPORTER
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  To achieve its goal of lowering unemployment to pre-recession levels of below 5 percent this year, the Council for Economic and Planning Development (CEPD) said the government should intensify efforts to assist the development of service and traditional industries and promote “green jobs.”

  Following a record rise in the jobless rate to 5.85 percent last year, CEPD Chairman Tsai Hsun-hsiung (蔡勳雄) and a group of academics and government officials discussed possible measures to boost domestic employment on Feb. 10. The closed-door meeting reached a consensus that the government should help the development of traditional and service industries, including offering wage subsidies and tax breaks and encouraging companies to hire long-term unemployed job seekers, the council said.

  With the economy gradually recovering, the unemployment rate fell for a fourth straight month to 5.74 percent last month. Government officials and economists said the rate was likely to drop to below 5 percent in the second half of the year if the economic rebound continued.

  “[The unemployment rate] could decline to below 5 percent with the service sector seeing a higher increase in employment” Liang Kuo-yuan (梁國源), president of Taipei-based Polaris Research Institute (寶華綜合經濟研究院) told the Taipei Times by telephone.

  However, for the jobless rate to fall to the target of below 5 percent, Liang said that “a strong economic rebound is needed and recovering industries must be able to recruit workers.”

  Max Fang (方光瑋), public relations manager at 104 Job Bank, welcomed the government’s job-creation stance, saying measures such as wage subsidies and tax breaks would certainly boost private business activity.

  Fang added, however, that the government should play a more active role in solving the problem of structural unemployment by organizing suitable vocational training programs based on job market demand.

  “College graduates, for instance, often lack professional abilities required by enterprises, especially in high-tech engineering, as well as the financial and medical fields,” he said.

  The CEPD attributed the problem of structural unemployment to the failure of workers in traditional industries to catch up with the nation’s industrial development.

  To address this problem, the government should extend the training period for those without jobs to give them enough time to learn new skills, the council said.

  Along with the rise in global environmental consciousness, the government should also promote jobs related to energy saving and carbon emissions reduction — the so-called “green jobs” — to drive up employment demand, the council said.

  “These include transforming blue-collar workers into environmental workers, promoting the concept of green communities and subsidizing communities and schools for using environmentally friendly materials and training professionals in the green-energy field,” the report said.

  However, Fang said that green jobs usually have “relatively high requirements” which cannot be easily filled by workers who lost their jobs because they failed to keep up with changes in the industry structure.

  “The green energy industry will only drive up demand for professionals. To solve structural unemployment, the government should offer more practical programs for those without jobs,” Fang said.

  Labor demand is still greater than supply in some service industries such as culinary arts and hair styling, he said.

  Although the Directorate-­General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has predicted that unemployment could drop to below 5 percent in the second half of the year, Fang said the government should not let down its guard too soon as there will be around 600,000 people joining the job market in the middle of the year.

  “A responsible government shouldn’t come out to offer help only when a problem has taken shape; it should be able to identify the problem beforehand,” Fang said.

  The DGBAS is scheduled to announce last month’s unemployment rate on Monday.
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