The central government will refrain from increasing the size of local governments to the extent that it would compromise the principle of streamlining their structure, the Central Personnel Administration (CPA) said in a press statement.
The Examination Yuan’s Ministry of Civil Services said on Thursday that the number of employees in local governments could be increased by 22,500 after Taipei County is upgraded to a municipality and the counties and cities of Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung are merged into municipalities at the end of next year.
In accordance with related regulations, a municipality with a population of more than 2 million is allowed to have a maximum of 15,400 employees, while the number of government staff is capped at 6,500 for a municipality with a population between 1.25 million and 2 million. Chou Chiu-ling (周秋玲), director of the Department of Laws and Regulations at the ministry, said that Taipei County would be allowed to increase its staff by 6,668, while the staff numbers could be increased in the merger of Taichung, Kaohsiung and Tainan by 9,439, 5,628, and 669 respectively.
All the counties and cities said in their proposals that they would not increase the number of staff by a large margin because they are all on a limited budget, Chou said. In the proposals, Taichung County and Taichung City wished to increase staff by 1,000 in the first stage. Tainan County and Tainan City said that the number of staff in a merged Tainan City would remain at the current level, as did Taipei County. Kaohsiung County and Kaohsiung City said they would hire more staff in a gradual manner, Chou said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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