Labor activists said they would march on the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) building this week to protest the council’s inability to help middle-aged and elderly workers find jobs.
Su Chen (蘇諍), convener of the Association of the Human Rights of the Jobless, said the association would call on labor groups and workers to gather in front of the CLA building and demand that Council Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) step down to take responsibility for the deteriorating job situation for middle-aged and elderly workers.
STATISTICS
The association cited statistics that showed the number of middle-aged and elderly jobless workers stood at 70,000 in October, but had climbed to 140,000 in May.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said 633,000 people were unemployed in May, of whom 22 percent were middle-aged or elderly.
The association said the numbers showed that the council had been ineffective in helping older workers find jobs.
FAILING
“The quickly rising number of older people without work shows that the council is not fulfilling its duties,” Su said.
“It has also stubbornly rejected suggestions to improve the situation from labor groups,” Su said.
“All this shows is that it is time for [Wang] to step down,” Su added.
Su said the council’s program to provide on-the-job training for older workers had failed to help them develop effective job skills, while short-term jobs in government agencies had resulted in older workers being prejudiced against and unable to find employment after the short-term job offers expired.
PROPOSAL
The association called on the council to provide subsidies for businesses that hire older workers to increase the incentive for creating such positions, similar to current government subsidies for businesses that hire new graduates to help them find jobs as they enter the job market.
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