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.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2