Ever thought about picking up dog poop or catching mosquitoes for a living? Well, now you can. Since late last year, the central government has begun offering such short-term work to jobless people in order to keep them working and the unemployment rate under control.
Around 73,000 of these jobs have been provided all over Taiwan. They range from picking up dog poop to keeping streets clean to catching mosquitoes and include helping police spot stolen vehicles, cleaning gutters, inspecting toilets, trimming lawns, and supervising garbage disposal and recycling.
The unusual program is part of a US$15 billion public spending plan by the government to bolster the economy during the current recession, which saw the country’s export-dependent economy decline by a record 10 percent in the first quarter from last year.
The workers are paid NT$800 a day and work five days a week for six months. With the unemployment rate hitting record highs, many people apply for these jobs despite the relatively low pay. Applicants include vocational school or college graduates who cannot find anything better, as well as people with mortgages to pay, kids to raise or credit card bills piling up.
Kao Shu-fang (高淑芳), a 45-year-old mother of three, has been catching mosquitoes for Kaohsiung City to prevent dengue fever outbreaks during the 2009 World Games, which will be held there next month.
“I had never heard of this kind of work before, but as I learn more about it, I find it interesting,” said Kao, who used to sell baby formula at hospitals but has not been able to find work in the past two years.
The job is not as simple as it sounds — she and her colleagues must visit 100 households each day and convince people to let them in to remove standing water, get rid of mosquito larvae and catch the mosquitoes, which they send to a laboratory to test for the dengue virus.
“It takes patience and a good attitude to convince people to let you into their homes,” Kao said.
The salary, while low, helps Kao and her husband make ends meet. With a mortgage and college tuition for their eldest child to pay, the couple is barely getting by.
“The situation isn’t good. It’s so hard to find work ... Late last year, my husband was put on unpaid leave. So in our family, money is tight,” Kao said. “This job definitely helps. The NT$800 a day I make can at least pay for food.”
MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK
The government-funded program is also helping various local government offices by sending them helping hands to do the kind of work they normally do not have enough manpower to do.
“To fight dengue fever, we need a lot of people ... We need people to find these places that have standing water. Without finding them, there will be mosquito infestations, so we really need the temporary workers,” said Chen Chaur-dong (陳朝東), head of the insect communicable disease prevention section of Kaohsiung City Department of Health’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (高雄市政府衛生局疾病管制處蟲媒傳染病防止股).
There are a lot of mosquitoes this year because the past winter has been warm, and the last thing the city wants is for there to be dengue fever outbreaks when thousands of athletes and spectators from all over the world descend on the city to watch the Games.
Meanwhile, the Taipei City Police Department’s crime investigation division’s crime prevention division (台北市政府警察局刑事警察大隊預防組), which received 20 temporary workers, is also seeing the benefits.
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