The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a set of plans to increase the wages of low-paid workers, including hiking the minimum wage for government employees to NT$30,000 (US$1,009) per month, encouraging or pressing private firms to follow suit, and raising the statutory hourly wage rate to NT$150 from NT$140.
A Cabinet report presented by Vice Premier Shih Jun-ji (施俊吉) at a news conference showed the number of employees who earned less than NT$30,000 per month last year was about 3.051 million, or 34 percent of the employed population, 51.8 percent of whom were 15 to 29 years old.
Atypical workers — those who have no fixed term of employment, including part-time workers, outsourced workers and workers on temporary contracts — accounted for a large percentage of the low-wage population, the report showed.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Last year, there were 805,000 atypical workers in the nation, accounting for 7.11 percent of the total working population, which was an increase of 155,000 from 2008, the report showed.
As of May last year, the average salary of atypical workers was about NT$22,550, just above the statutory minimum monthly wage of NT$22,000, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data showed.
Of the 3.051 million people earning less than NT$30,000 per month, at least 19,410 were employed at listed companies, and 16,067 at government agencies, state-owned enterprises or government-funded institutions, the report showed.
That meant that nearly 99 percent were employees of small and medium-sized enterprises that were not listed on the stock exchange, the report said.
Shih said that under the Cabinet’s proposed “five major policies and 16 measures,” the monthly salary paid to the 16,067 people employed at government or state-run enterprises would be increased to NT$30,000, but that it would be done gradually to avoid disrupting the equity of the salary structure.
Such a move would cost the government an additional NT$962 million annually, he said, adding that listed companies should be responsible for raising the salaries of their own employees, which the Cabinet said would cost the firms an estimated NT$964 million annually.
Low pay is one of the issues that the public has asked the government to solve, and after several cross-departmental meetings, the Executive Yuan has proposed a strategy, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said.
In the short term, the government is to increase public workers’ salaries, include salary standards as a bonus item when accessing companies for government procurement and awards, encourage private businesses to raise salaries, make salaries transparent and raise the minimum hourly wage, he said.
In the medium-to-long term, the government is to increase investments, speed up industry upgrades, reduce the burden on employees, improve the quality of human resources and minimize the gap between academia and industry, he said.
The main issue is a lack of investment, Lai added.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) proposed “five plus two” industrial innovation plan would help raise salaries, he said, adding that the Executive Yuan is to continue to push the strategy.
The Cabinet has also suggested raising the statutory hourly wage to NT$150 from NT$140 when the Basic Wage Deliberation Committee meets later this year to review minimum wages.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS