The Landis Taipei (台北亞都麗緻飯店) is negotiating with its employees about a plan to introduce unpaid leave as its business suffers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, hotel management said in a statement yesterday.
The statement was the hotel’s response to a Chinese-language media report the previous day that said the Landis Hospitality Group (麗緻餐旅集團) on April 1 would introduce a three-month plan under which employees would take six days of unpaid leave per month.
It is the latest move by the group to offset declining guest numbers following the closure of the Landis Taichung (台中亞都麗緻飯店) on Monday last week, the report said.
Landis Taipei said in the statement that it is still discussing the plan with its employees and would reveal the details once an agreement is reached.
“It is necessary to have staff consent” before cutting working hours, the statement said, expressing the hope that employees would understand the difficult situation the company is in.
The provisional furlough policy would be rescinded if business recovers quicker than expected, the statement said.
With the closure of the Landis Taichung, the Landis Group has five local hotels and resorts: the Landis Taipei, the Tayih Landis Hotel Tainan (台南大億麗緻酒店), Pause Landis Resorts (璞石麗緻溫泉會館) in New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來), the Landis Resort Yangmingshan (陽明山中國麗緻大飯店) in Taipei and the Landis Inn Chuhu (竹湖暐順麗緻文旅) in Hsinchu City.
Landis Group business development division assistant general manager Gary Lo (羅明威) attributed the closure of Landis Taichung after 13 years to the economic slowdown, surging rental fees and operational costs, as well as the impact of the pandemic.
“We never made enough to cover our losses,” Lo said.
Landis Taipei shares fell 1.45 percent to close at NT$21.50 on Friday last week. There were no trades yesterday.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce