The Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) is working to introduce a new labor bill which will define the rights and responsibilities involving dispatched employment and will help protect the interests of dispatched laborers and employees.
The draft of the new CLA-initiated bill, expected to be hammered out in six months, will formally regulate that the term of each contracted dispatched employment should not be longer than one year, officials from CLA's Labor Conditions Department said.
Dispatched employment, or contingent and temporary employment under contract, has become increasingly popular in Taiwan's business and industrial sectors as a means for corporate operators to shorten their payrolls and lower overhead costs.
Over the past three years, about 5,000 companies in Taiwan have used temporary workers based on dispatched employment contracts that they obtained through dispatched work brokers, said Yang Chao-an, manager of a dispatched work brokerage company, adding that the number is expected to mushroom to some 10,000 in the next two years, constituting about one-fifth of all business firms and companies.
Not all dispatched employment involves labor-intensive work, according to CLA officials. Dispatched employment contracts have been signed by computer programmers from the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, presentation girls at international automobile expositions, telephone operators and project managers, they noted.
According to CLA officials, some 14 percent of Taiwan's companies established after 1997 have used dispatched workers. Last year, while many firms laid off their employees and cut their employment list because of the poor business climate, the business of dispatched work brokerage ran against the trend and flourished, the officials said.
Many companies use employees, including janitors and security guards, based on dispatched employment contracts to save costs that would be derived from pension programs, lay-off payments, compensation for injuries or deaths in the work place and health insurance premiums, the officials said.
Dispatched employment is a three-way issue of rights and responsibilities involving the broker, the dispatched worker and the company where the dispatched worker works.
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