The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Cabinet-level Council of Aboriginal Affairs for dereliction of duty in not providing proper assistance to the nation's Aborigines and making them suffer from the difficulties of unemployment.
"The council obviously wastes its resources by setting up job-service stations in cities and counties where relatively few Aboriginal people live," a report released by the Control Yuan stated yesterday.
"Also, its training programs provided to that group do not fit their needs and do not sufficiently lower the group's unemployment rate," it added.
The report was announced yesterday by Control Yuan members Lin Ju-liang (林鉅鋃), Lin Jiang-tsai (林將財), Lin Chiou-shan (林秋山) and Huang Wu-tzu (黃武次) who conducted the investigation into the matter.
The four highlighted the problem of high unemployment for Aboriginal groups in Taiwan and used that as the basis for the Control Yuan's censure of the council for its failure to resolve such problems.
According to the report, official statistics show that in May of this year, the Aboriginal unemployment rate reached 8.37 percent compared to 5.02 percent for non-Aboriginal groups.
This year's statistics also show that the nation's Aborigines who are currently looking for work have, on average, been jobless about 65 weeks. Among those Aborigine job hunters, 3 percent of them have been without work for more than 5 years.
The Control Yuan found that the Aboriginal council had set up job service stations for Aborigines in five urban areas including Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung.
But most Aborigines do not live in those cities -- they live in Hualien, Taitung and Pingtung Counties; and the highest unemployment rates for Aboriginals are in Keelung City (21.44 percent), Ilan County (20.27 percent) and Hsinchu County (21.44 percent).
"The administrative measures should be service-oriented, but the council obviously did not do it well and wasted the resources of the government," Huang said.
Furthermore, the new report pointed out that even though the council has provided job-training programs every year since 1999, the participation rate in such programs has been as low as 11 percent.
Also, even after obtaining certificates from such programs, only 5 percent of the participants are working in a field related to their studies.
"The council achieves little in terms of promoting job-training programs as well as introducing participants to proper positions," the report said.
The report concluded that the council should take at least partial responsibility for the fact that the unemployment rate among Aborigines remains high.
The council has two months to report to the Control Yuan with its proposed measures for improving its performance.
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
The first global hotel Keys Selection by the Michelin Guide includes four hotels in Taiwan, Michelin announced yesterday. All four received the “Michelin One Key,” indicating guests are to experience a “very special stay” at any of the locations as the establishments are “a true gem with personality. Service always goes the extra mile, and the hotel provides much more than others in its price range.” Of the four hotels, three are located in Taipei and one in Taichung. In Taipei, the One Key accolades were awarded to the Capella Taipei, Kimpton Da An Taipei and Mandarin Oriental Taipei. Capella Taipei was described by
Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) yesterday said that private-sector refiners are willing to stop buying Russian naphtha should the EU ask them to, after a group of non-governmental organizations, including the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), criticized the nation’s continued business with the country. While Taiwan joined the US and its Western allies in putting broad sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, it did not explicitly ban imports of naphtha, a major hard-currency earner for Russia. While state-owned firms stopped importing Russian oil in 2023, there is no restriction on private companies to
INDUSTRY: Beijing’s latest export measures go beyond targeting the US and would likely affect any country that uses Chinese rare earths or related tech, an academic said Taiwanese industries could face significant disruption from China’s newly tightened export controls on rare earth elements, as much of Taiwan’s supply indirectly depends on Chinese materials processed in Japan, a local expert said yesterday. Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈), director of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, said that China’s latest export measures go far beyond targeting the US and would likely affect any country that uses Chinese rare earths or related technologies. With Japan and Southeast Asian countries among those expected to be hit, Taiwan could feel the impact through its reliance on Japanese-made semi-finished products and
RSS