The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) yesterday said that it plans to extend the retirement age for workers in Taiwan from the current 60 years old to 65 years old, to ease the fiscal burden on the social welfare system.
Workers in Taiwan can receive pension benefits starting at 60 years old, and the council plans to gradually extend the age to 65 years old over 10 years, CEPD Deputy Minister Nancy Chen (陳小紅) told reporters yesterday after a cross-department meeting held by the council. The retirement age for civil servants in Taiwan will also be extended, Chen said.
On average, people in Taiwan retire at 55, indicating that a male citizen has to depend on a pension for 17 years on average, and a female citizen for 23 years on average, Chen said.
Meanwhile, the council also plans to ease the regulations for foreign employees, including Chinese employees, to work in Taiwan, as the work force in Taiwan gradually dwindles.
Taiwan is now home to about 470,000 new immigrants, mostly from China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.
The council estimates that the workforce in Taiwan numbered 17.3 million last year, and the number will start to decline in 2015 and decrease by half to 9.6 million by 2060, Chen said.
Chen said she will report to the Cabinet about the demographic situation within a week, while the Council of Labor Affairs, Ministry of Health and Welfare and Ministry of Education will submit a plan to cope with the situation by the end of this year.
While the raising of the retirement age will increase people’s contributions to the pension fund and reduce pension payments, as well as help stem the bleeding from the various national pension funds, critics have said at least one side effect of this move is that the average age of the labor force will increase, making it more difficult for young people to enter the job market.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS