Worrying about an increasing gap between the supply of human resources and the nation's growing employment needs, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday said the falling birth rate must be reversed and more people should seek advanced studies abroad.
Answering questions at the National Affairs Conference for Youth held in the Chungshan Building on Yangmingshan, Yu said that there is an ever-growing gap between the nation's educational sector and the industrial sector in terms of quality and quantity of supplies of high-caliber manpower.
Citing a report by the Council for Cultural Affairs, Yu said that the hi-tech industrial sector as a whole has 6,100 openings of various kinds of jobs this year that are still unfilled and the manpower shortage is expected to top 10,000 individuals next year.
Yu said that Taiwan's hi-tech industrial sector -- a driving force pushing Taiwan to become one of the economic powerhouses in the world -- was established and is nurtured by high-caliber scientists and specialists who returned to the country after obtaining advanced degrees abroad.
In recent years, however, the number of the country's students going abroad for higher education, particularly to the US, has dropped, Yu said. This is one situation that the government is concerned about, he added.
To help redress the issue, Yu said, the Executive Yuan has hammered out an "elite studying abroad" program, in hopes that more than 1,000 students from Taiwan will go abroad for advanced studies each year, including those sponsored by the government.
Regarding the nations' declining birth rate and a possible negative growth in population, Yu said that Taiwan's average birth rate is now already lower than those of Singapore and France.
The government will continue to encourage married women to have more children, Yu said, adding that it is hoped that the country's average birth rate will again be 2.2 children per married woman for her entire life.
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