Dozens of unemployed people and their children staged a demonstration on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office yesterday, urging President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration to help the jobless find employment.
“Being jobless is not just a problem for the unemployed worker, it also affects their circle of friends and their families,” Hsiao Chung-han (蕭忠漢) of the Association for Rights of the Unemployed told the demonstrators, many of whom held placards showing images of Ma above the words “feel the pain of the people.”
Huang Yao-hung (黃耀宏), 58, was one of the protesters.
PHOTO: AFP
Huang, from Taichung, used to work for a machinery manufacturer, but lost his job when the company moved its factory to China several years ago.
“Now I only work low-paying part-time jobs, but I have five kids to feed — all college students,” Huang said, adding that he needed to spend more than NT$100,000 on tuition fees for his children twice a year.
“All I want is for the government to help me find a stable job,” he said.
Another protester, Liao Mei-jung (廖美蓉), whose husband was laid off when Chunghwa Telecom was privatized several years ago, agreed.
“Social welfare resources should be spent on taking care of those who can’t work,” Liao said. “Since we’re still capable of working, providing job opportunities for us should be the priority.”
Aside from economic pressure, she said, “the psychological pressure [of being jobless] is the most troubling.”
In addition to offering help with finding stable employment, the demonstrators said the president should fulfill his campaign promise of extending the period of time an unemployed person is eligible to receive unemployment benefits from six months to one year.
They urged Ma to set up an unemployment rights commission under the Presidential Office “to periodically check employment promotion policies,” Hsiao said.
The demonstrators’ request to meet officials from the Presidential Office was not met yesterday as it was a weekend day.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to