With the goal of driving down unemployment among people aged 29 or younger, the Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled its “investing in youth employment plan,” which aims to allocate NT$9.5 billion (US$305.6 million) over a four-year period to subsidize job placement, on-the-job training and bonuses.
The program targets graduates from universities or other institutes of higher education, young people who have been unemployed for at least six months, people in need of on-the-job training and those working under unconventional labor conditions.
For graduates, a dedicated channel would be set up to provide them with career counseling, the Ministry of Labor said.
The Ministry of Education would seek feedback from graduates regarding its counseling and provide information on job vacancies, while it would maintain records of their careers, it said.
The records would serve as a reference for the education ministry to determine whether adjustments are needed at institutes of higher education, it said.
The government hopes to boost collaborative internship programs between academia and the private sector by 5 percent each year, it said.
A “career card” would be given to young people who have been unemployed for six months or longer that would outline to prospective employers their abilities, the labor ministry said.
Those who receive its in-depth counseling and find a job within three months that they stay at for three months would receive a one-time bonus of NT$30,000, it said.
Young people who are interested in participating in internship programs in sectors targeted by the Cabinet’s “five plus two” industrial upgrade initiative, but face tuition fees, would receive up to NT$100,000 per person, the labor ministry said.
Employees who are required to attend on-the-job training would be eligible for subsidies of up to NT$70,000 over three years, it said.
It would subsidize companies up to NT$45,000 each time they offer a training program for an unconventional worker and later hire them as a formal employee, it added.
The labor ministry would encourage companies to offer training programs for unconventional workers, such as dispatch workers, by appointing one-on-one instructors and would commend businesses that hire unconventional workers.
The plan is to drive the unemployment rate among people aged 20 to 29 down from about 8 percent to 7.4 percent, Deputy Minister of Labor Lin Ming-yu (林明裕) said.
The labor ministry would begin work immediately to integrate the new rules with existing policy to boost youth employment, Lin said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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