Government jobs being outsourced more frequently

Increasingly, outsourcing job openings is not a phenomenon unique to private companies. It has become common among the nation's government agencies, according to a recent survey released by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA).

The survey suggested that more than 41 percent of the sampled government divisions outsourced jobs last year, while 7.3 percent of the surveyed private sector firms used workers from outside the company.

Cleaning and machine handlers respectively accounted for about 30 percent and 26 percent of the jobs outsourced by the government departments last year, the survey showed.

Director of the CLA's statistics division Lin Li-chen (林麗貞) said that 74.3 percent of the government agencies outsourced work last year because of cutbacks in personnel quotas and management expenses.

Close 43 percent of the official sections did not hire employees directly because if they outsourced the process to a human resources firm, they could then have more flexibility and relocate personnel according to their needs later, she said.

The data also show there was an overall increase in the number of companies that outsourced work last year. The percentage went from 6.6 percent in a previous poll in 2004 to 7.9 percent in this investigation.

There is a tendency for companies with more employees to use outside workers more, according to the statistics.

The finance and insurance industries, as well as the water and electricity and health care segments, were the major industries outsourcing job opportunities last year, Lin said.

Most of the outsourced jobs in private businesses last year included administrative assistants, machine handlers, cleaning personnel and call center employees, she added.

The average period of work for outsourced jobs ranged from seven months to 18 months, the poll showed.

According to an article published by the Chinese-language Chinatimes Weekly on June 30, at least 100,000 people work in outsourced jobs every year, temporary employees not included.

Most of the workers are between 25 and 30 years old, the article said.

High-tech in Taiwan such as TSMC and IBM outsource 5 percent and 20 percent of job openings, it added.

The story quoted outsourcing consulting companies as saying that workers filling the outsourced positions have been offered better employee benefits after the new labor pension system took effect.