As the Jan. 11 elections draw near, the presidential candidates are pointing to two social issues: care for the elderly and youth unemployment. However, they are forgetting the hidden unemployment among the middle-aged.
“Middle-aged” is defined as people aged 50 to 65, the legally stipulated age of retirement. Once middle-aged people leave the workforce, they face immense problems as unemployment causes economic difficulties for their families. Their children might still be in senior-high school or university and have to apply for student loans due to the family’s financial situation, which eventually leads to problems with repayment.
The average retirement age in Taiwan is 57, but most who retire at this age do so unwillingly: They might have been forced to retire because their salaries are too high or because their bodies do not hold up anymore, and instead they become a burden to their family and society. They have experience and connections, and some of them have capital, but they lack new concepts or business ideas that are in step with current trends.
Considering the government’s push to promote youth entrepreneurship, based on my 10 years of experience in guiding young entrepreneurs, the high fail rate is a result of a lack of technical knowledge, experience and networks.
When encouraging youth entrepreneurship, the presidential candidates should propose policies that match the experience and networks of middle-aged people with the ideas and energy of young people. This could improve the success rate and help solve both youth and middle-aged unemployment.
The Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (中小企業處) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs has a loan program for young entrepreneurs, and the Workforce Development Agency (勞動力發展署) of the Ministry of Labor has a loan program for micro-business ventures.
Presidential candidates could propose the addition of a program providing loans to middle-aged entrepreneurs and young people, allowing them to borrow money for joint ventures where they act as guarantors for each other.
Such ventures would allow middle-aged and young people to work together and make up for each other’s shortcomings. It would help solve youth unemployment, hidden employment among the middle-aged, reduce the start-up failure rate, reduce the need for student loans and provide unemployed middle-aged people with a new option — hitting several birds with one stone.
The creativity networks, youth entrepreneur bases and incubation centers that the government has set up around the nation could serve as intermediaries. This would solve several social issues and in one fell swoop improve the social and economic situation from the bottom up.
Wayne Sung is director of the Chinese Business Incubation Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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