President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday the government would work harder to take care of the country’s laborers and create more jobs.
“The most important task this year is to increase employment,” Ma said in Taichung City during a meeting with labor union officials at the Central Training Center of the Council of Labor Affairs’ (CLA) Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training, adding that the government attaches great importance to the views of laborers.
Ma said the global financial crisis had cut into tax revenues, which undermined the government’s ability to take good care of laborers.
After the economy improves, however, the government will work harder to take care of them, he said.
Also attending the seminar were CLA Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) and other government officials.
Later yesterday when visiting a job fair in the city, Ma said that if local governments would put more effort into hosting job fairs, the unemployment rate would drop to below 5 percent very soon.
The jobless rate last month was 5.67 percent, down 0.09 percentage points from February. The unemployment rate is now the lowest it has been for nearly 14 months, but is still the highest among the four “Asian dragons,” according to statistics from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
The Taichung City Government and National Chung Hsing University co-sponsored the job fair, which attracted nearly 50 companies offering around 2,500 jobs.
Ma also urged Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) to hold another job fair before the year-end municipality election.
Hu said he hoped that those who are willing to work would find jobs and said that if he was nominated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to run for the mayoral post of Taichung municipality — a merger of Taichung City and Taichung County — he would make job creation his priority and will establish a labor service center.
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