The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed a law establishing employment quotas for Aborigines at all levels of government.
The Aboriginal Employment Guarantee Law states that government agencies, schools and government-owned companies must ensure that at least one percent of their total temporary and short-term contract workers are Aborigines.
It also states that the required quota is two percent for branches of the listed organizations that are located in Aboriginal areas.
The law emphasizes that it is aimed specifically at employees on fixed-term contracts.
This meant that it is restricted to unskilled and low-skilled employees, such as laborers, guards, drivers, janitors and temporary workers.
Civil servants and teachers, who remain unaffected by the new quotas, are hired under open-ended contracts.
"This law is needed to guarantee employment opportunities for Aborigines," said Walis Pelin (瓦歷斯貝林), an Aboriginal lawmaker, "especially at a time when there are so many foreign workers in Taiwan's labor market."
Under the new law, government bodies which fail to meet their quotas in three years will be fined one month's basic salary for each unfilled quota position.
Failure to pay the fine will result in the government suing the agency in question.
The amendment does not apply to government agencies and schools on Taiwan's off-shore islands.
According to the Council of Abo-riginal Affairs, unemployment among Aborigines has reached 7.55 percent.
This is over two percentage points higher than the 5.17 percent rate recorded for the general population in August, the latest month for which figures are available.
The fact that Aborigines often receive only rudimentary schooling, said the Council of Aboriginal Affairs under the Executive Yuan, is one factor behind the relatively high levels of unemployment affecting Aborigines.
This amendment was modeled after the Disabled Welfare Law (殘障福利), which set employment quotas for the physically disabled in government agencies and schools.
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