The number of workers in Taiwan on unpaid leave hit its highest level in about three years and the situation is expected to worsen as the nation’s LCD industry struggles, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said yesterday.
The number of workers asked to take unpaid leave climbed slightly in the past two weeks, reaching the highest level since March 2012, Ministry of Labor data released yesterday showed.
As of Monday, a total of 5,437 workers from 50 companies had reached agreements with their employers to take unpaid leave, figures showed.
That was 145 more workers and five more companies than in the previous reporting period in the middle of last month, the ministry said.
It was also the highest number of workers subject to unpaid leave since the middle of March 2012, when 5,804 workers were on furlough.
The number of workers on unpaid leave has been higher than 1,000 since the end of September and jumped by 4,074 during the first half of last month.
Gou yesterday said he expects the number of employees on unpaid leave to increase next year if China continues to levy a 5 percent tariff on Taiwanese LCD panels.
“Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd’s (CPT, 中華映管) implementation of an unpaid leave program could be just the beginning,” Gou told reporters after a meeting with China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘) in Taipei.
CPT on Nov. 6 said it is to begin a one-year unpaid leave program as it streamlines its operations to weather an industrial slump.
The program requires employees to take four to eight days of unpaid leave each month.
Gou said Taiwanese panel manufacturers still outpace their competitors in 4K technology for the time being, but without zero-tariff treatment in China, they will soon be replaced by South Korean companies in the Chinese market.
He said Innolux Corp (群創) has more than 60,000 employees in Taiwan, while AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) also has a significant number of workers in the nation.
“Without zero-tariff treatment, it is expected that these companies will face a very tough situation,” he said.
“Don’t be surprised. I foresee the trend [of unpaid leave] will continue,” Gou said.
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