The nation’s workforce happiness index fell slightly this year, dropping to 61.6 out of 100, a survey released on Friday by the online job bank yes123 showed ahead of the Workers’ Day weekend. While the happiness score, which aims to measure how Taiwanese feel about their jobs, remained above the 60-point threshold this year and is considered satisfactory, it is lower than last year’s 62.6 and ends four consecutive years of increases.
The survey collected 1,216 valid responses from adults online from April 13 to Monday last week, with respondents listing their top five desires as: “Having good physical and mental health” (54.3 percent), “Receiving a pay raise” (50.8 percent), “Leaving work on time” (41.2 percent), “Saving enough money to buy a house” (34.3 percent) and “Changing jobs” (31.6 percent).
About 29.3 percent of respondents said they do not want to be placed on unpaid leave and 28.1 percent hope they would not be laid off, while 27.1 percent expect their vacation time to be approved, 25.2 percent do not want to receive text messages from supervisors on personal time or during vacations, and 23.8 percent try to achieve a work-life balance, the survey found.
The survey also revealed a reality for employees, with 88.3 percent saying that their bosses or supervisors are “spoiled.” Respondents said that these bosses or supervisors tend to treat workers poorly, but still believe their staff should be loyal to the workplace. For instance, 41.2 percent said their bosses do not want to hire additional people to address the staff’s current workload, 40 percent said they are forced to do work unrelated to their duties, and 32.2 percent said they are required to work overtime without pay or compensatory holidays.
Meanwhile, 25.1 percent said that their requests for pay raises or bonuses are often denied on the grounds that the company is not profitable. A further 23.8 percent said that they are often subject to verbal abuse by their bosses or supervisors, who they say have low emotional intelligence.
Although most workers said that an ideal job is to work 7.6 hours per day, 53 percent said they sometimes must work overtime after clocking out, while 58 percent said that they sometimes need to stay up late to finish their work. As a result, employees estimate that they spend an average of 9.3 hours at work each day, with 12.3 percent working for 12 hours or more, far exceeding the maximum allowed by law. The long hours result in insufficient rest, poor sleep, a lack of exercise, irregular eating schedules and an imbalance between work and family time, the survey showed.
Low wages have long been a complaint of workers in Taiwan. Coupled with a poor work-life balance and high stress levels in the workplace, Taiwanese workers have led deprived lives for a long time. The accumulated work fatigue certainly negatively affects labor efficiency, as well as employees’ physical and mental health.
In particular, as the work-from-home trend has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become crucial for people to keep their home and work lives separate, and to avoid working overtime. These issues must be addressed and corrected to protect workers’ quality of life. Otherwise, growth of businesses and industry will be hindered, affecting the overall economic performance of the country.
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