Forty-five companies have sent a total of 5,292 employees on unpaid leave so far this month, the highest number in three years, according to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Labor yesterday.
It was the greatest number of people on unpaid leave in the nation since the end of December 2012, when 4,450 were asked by their employers to take time off without pay.
According to the ministry, the number of workers in Taiwan on unpaid leave has remained greater than 1,000 since Sept. 30, reflecting the nation’s sluggish economy amid slumping global trade demand.
Taiwan’s high-tech sector, which relies heavily on exports, has been among the sectors that have seen a slowdown in orders and a need to save money by having workers take leave without pay.
The Ministry of Science and Technology yesterday reported that 788 employees from three major high-tech hubs have been sent on unpaid leave this month, with 621 of them working in the Central Taiwan Science Park.
The Hsinchu Science Park and the Southern Science Park in Tainan also saw small upticks in furloughed workers to 109 and 58 respectively.
Chiu Chiu-hui (邱求慧), the official responsible for science parks at the science and technology ministry, said the three science parks might post negative growth for last month because of the lackluster global economy.
However, he said that the nation’s economy was moving in a better direction and he still saw a chance for the three science parks to report growth for the whole year.
The three science parks reported revenue of NT$1.13 trillion (US$34.22 billion) in the first half of this year, up 6.47 percent year-on-year, according to the science and technology ministry.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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