The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said it would submit proposals to the Executive Yuan by the end of next month to reform the performance review process for employees of state-run enterprises.
The move comes as the ministry’s plans to give generous annual bonuses to employees at Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空); CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 中油); Taiwan Water Corp (台灣自來水); Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖) and Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) have led to negative reaction from the public amid the current sluggish economy.
Under the ministry’s plans, employees at CPC are to receive 4.6 months’ salary as a year-end bonus ahead of the Lunar New Year next month, followed by AIDC’s employees’ 3.88 months’ salary, Taiwan Water’s 3.46 months, Taisugar’s 3.31 months and Taipower’s 2.65 to 3.5 months.
Under the current system, the total bonuses distributed to employees of state-run enterprises is composed of two parts: a maximum of up to 2.6 months’ salary awarded based on the company’s performance as decided by the ministry, and a maximum of up to two months’ salary based on an employees’ performance — which requires Premier Sean Chen’s (陳冲) approval.
“We think further discussion is needed to make the difference between the two parts of the bonuses more distinct in order to avoid any misunderstanding,” Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) told the legislature’s Economics Committee.
Last week, the ministry said it would consider macroeconomic indexes such as the nation’s GDP growth rate, its unemployment rate and the income growth rate of the poorest 20 percent of the nation’s households in the calculation of state enterprises’ employee bonuses in the future.
Both Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏) blamed the ministry for implementing policies that caused losses at Taipower and CPC, but then using “policy factors” as excuses when considering employees’ bonus payouts.
“The management of state-run enterprises cannot just walk away from this mess. Someone needs to take political responsibility to appease public outcry, or fix the system,” Lin said at the committee meeting.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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