To resolve the problem of “low wages and high unemployment” among young people, the Executive Yuan approved the second phase of its Investing in Youth Employment Program, with a budget of NT$16 billion (US$522 million) to help 800,000 young people find jobs.
However, several years after the program was launched in 2019, the unemployment rate among those aged 15 to 29 was still as high as 8.38 percent last year, showing that the problem of low wages and high unemployment remains unsolved.
Experts in the social work sector say that youth employment is a long-term problem that should be addressed in the government’s social welfare policies, which can use diverse methods to promote youth employment through “social facilitation.” Such an approach is better than the Ministry of Labor’s job-matching program for young people.
“Social facilitation” — a phenomenon in which the presence of others improves individual performance — can be adopted by a social welfare system to enable groups such as unemployed youth and women to share the fruits of social development, and to provide equal opportunities for personal development.
Through “employment facilitation,” which mediates the labor market mechanism, the government can exercise state power to intervene in the labor market to increase job opportunities for disadvantaged people, thus protecting workers’ basic rights.
The overall unemployment rate in Taiwan has remained at 3.7 percent since 2010, but the rate among people aged 15 to 29 has been at about 10 percent, which has become the norm in the labor market.
Earlier this month, the Legislative Yuan passed the Social Welfare Basic Act (社會福利基本法). Following the examples of the Indigenous Peoples Employment Rights Protection Act (原住民族工作權保障法) and the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法), the legislature should also create a “youth employment rights protection act” to reserve jobs for young people. This is the way to help them find jobs.
In addition, welfare benefits can be bundled with employment promotion.
Since the 1990s, countries such as the UK and the US have emphasized that welfare recipients must enter the job market. In Taiwan, the Employment Insurance Act (就業保險法) requires that an involuntary unemployed person is required to register with a public employment agency for job placement, and the person is only eligible for such benefits if the agency fails to find a job or arrange vocational training for them. Therefore, the Cabinet’s Investing in Youth Employment Program should shift toward “positive welfare.”
The Ministry of Labor has proposed several youth employment programs since 2014, with a budget of more than NT$30 billion. To utilize this massive budget effectively, the opinion of experts in social work should be reiterated, as the Cabinet can integrate the Investing in Youth Employment Program into its social welfare policies for coordinated implementation. This would resolve the problem of low wages and high unemployment of young people.
Chen Chien-hsien is an assistant professor in Meiho University’s Department of Social Work.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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