A survey of 4,017 workers by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) found that workers have changed the way they manage their assets in the past five years.
Compared to a similar survey conducted in 2002, the percentage of those putting money into properties, savings accounts, individual stocks and through "mutual aid societies" (
The survey was conducted to gauge the readiness of workers in this country to face retirement, said Lin Lee-jen (
"Our savings rate in this country is still quite high, in excess of 20 percent," Lin said. "However, whether or not those savings can give us a comfortable life depends on how they are managed."
The decrease in those using mutual aid societies is the most dramatic.
While 38.7 percent of surveyed workers participated in such societies in 2001, only 10.3 percent did so last year, a drop finance experts credit to the increasing number of firms offering financial planning services in this country.
Mutual aid societies are a traditional way for individuals to obtain credit from a group of peers. One member receives dues collected from the rest of the members every month.
The member who needs the money the most submits the highest bid for the pot. Those who are not in immediate need of the money do not bid and in return receive the pot when it comes to their turn to collect.
Investment in real estate is also down as property prices have risen out of reach for many. Those who saved through investing in real estate fell from 42.7 to 17.8 percent. Those investing in stocks fell from 42.1 percent to 31.2 percent.
In the face of low interest rates in savings accounts, those using them as an investment also fell from 72.2 to 56.6 percent.
The percentage of those investing in mutual funds increased from 32 percent to 41.4 percent while the percentage of those who bought insurance rose from 48.9 percent to 57.1 percent.
Hsin Ping-lung (
"So we know a greater percentage of people are buying insurance, but we don't know what kind of insurance they are buying or how much," Hsin said.
The savvy or lack thereof of individual investors could determine to what extent labor retirement benefits could be privatized, Hsin said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods