The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said yesterday that it was considering proposing an additional chapter on contract work to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法), capping the percentage of a company’s workforce that can legally be made up of contract workers.
Contract employees, or temps, are usually hired through employment agencies. They have recently become a popular low-cost way for businesses to boost their workforces because employers are usually not obliged to provide the same job benefits for contract workers as they do for regular employees.
As the job market has only recently begun to improve following the economic downturn, many job seekers remain willing to accept temporary work in the hope of later securing a regular position at a company they are interested in.
An online job bank said that last month the number of white-collar temporary positions available reached 33,000, about 1.5 times as many as the same period a year earlier.
CLA statistics show that 516,000 people in Taiwan are currently employed as contract workers. The large numbers involved also highlights the importance of regulating this segment of the labor market to ensure temporary workers do not lose their jobs as a result of government intervention.
Officials said that the additional chapter on contract work might cap the proportion of contract workers a company can hire at 3 percent of its total workforce. However, a company will still be able to hire contract workers to comprise up to 20 percent of its total workforce with union approval and where a majority of employees are union members.
The council is also mulling whether to hold employers, not hiring agencies, responsible in the event of workplace related incidents such as sexual harassment or discrimination.
In related news, the CLA yesterday downplayed concerns that the number of applications for unemployment benefits rose in March, despite the recent fall in the unemployment rate.
Since the number of people receiving unemployment benefits peaked at 124,000 in March last year, the number of first-time and repeat claimants has gradually fallen as the economy has recovered and the jobless started to find work.
In January, about 50,000 people were receiving unemployment benefits. That number fell to 36,000 in February, but almost doubled to 70,000 in March.
Council officials said that the sudden increase could be because many people did not have their benefit applications approved in February because of a weeklong holiday for the Lunar New Year.
The council also indicated a continued positive outlook for the job market as the economy recovers.
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