A recent series of nationwide job fairs presented by government agencies only filled about 20 percent of the jobs on offer, figures released yesterday show.
While about 70 percent of the 13,000 job openings offered by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) were filled, only about 10 percent of the 34,000 jobs offered by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and 5 percent of the 20,000 jobs at the Ministry of National Defense were filled, council officials said.
Hundreds of thousands of people had flocked to the four large job fairs that were held around the country in April, which offered 84,000 full-time jobs.
The Executive Yuan had called on various agencies, including the CLA, the MOE, the Council of Agriculture, the National Youth Commission and the Coast Guard Administration, to provide job openings for the fairs.
The government had initially promised to provide jobs for 40,000 people at the four fairs. However, that number rose to more than 80,000 in the days leading up to the fairs.
Labor associations have accused the council of inflating the number of job openings and getting job seekers’ hopes up without providing any real benefits, dismissing the job fairs as a “numbers game” aimed at making job seekers feel better.
Son Yu-lian (孫友聯), secretary-general of the Taiwan Labor Front, urged the council to strengthen local employment service centers instead of spending resources on holding job fairs that do not live up to expectations.
Meanwhile, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday urged the CLA and the MOE to step up efforts to bring hiring managers and recent college graduates together in a bid to slow down the unemployment rate, which is expected to rise as graduation season approaches.
To help new college graduates find jobs, the government has implemented a temporary program to put graduates in contact with enterprises interested in providing one-year internship opportunities.
The MOE said 36,816 internship openings have been created by 9,311 businesses, while more than 33,859 recent college graduates have registered for the program.
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