Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday said that the key to addressing the exploitation of the government’s “22K” policy lies in improving the “career currency” of young jobseekers, while proposing other policies to tackle low pay.
The 22K policy refers to a government scheme implemented in 2009 that provided subsidies to companies that hired new graduates to make up a monthly wage of NT$22,000 (US$666). It has been blamed for low and stagnant starting salaries among young people.
“Regardless of how many ‘Ks’ the scheme offered, we must address the problem from the working-environment angle. As long as we manage to improve jobseekers’ career currencies, they could easily earn 40K [NT$40,000] per month,” Chu said.
Photo: CNA
Chu made the remarks at a press conference at KMT headquarters yesterday afternoon to release his salary-boosting campaign platform, which aims to increase employability, globalize domestic businesses and offer tax deductions to corporations that give employees raises.
Since 2000, the unemployment rate among young people has grown to three times the national jobless rate, which is primarily due to the wide disparity between the education levels of applicants and the skills expected by their employers, Chu said.
“To solve the issue, I plan to reinforce cooperation between education providers and businesses, such as by setting up nationwide ‘industry-school matching service centers’ and offering tax deductions to encourage corporations to join industry-academic cooperation schemes,” Chu said.
Chu also proposed establishing a “talent cultivation 4.0 program,” which would provide accreditation for jobseekers’ employment skills and offer subsidized career training courses to unemployed individuals or people on low incomes.
In addition, the proposal would allow firms to deduct from their taxes 200 percent of pay increases they give employees in their first year on the job, 160 percent in the second year and 130 percent in the third year, Chu said.
Also, corporations that hire people aged 29 or younger would be entitled to declare 150 percent of salaries paid to such workers as deductible expenses, he said.
“The policy would only make a small dent in the government’s tax revenue, approximately NT$64 million per year, which could easily be made up for by increasing public expenditure and economic growth that ensue salary hikes,” Chu said.
Chu also proposed creating a system of mentorship between senior and younger employees to facilitate knowledge transfers and safeguard the working rights of older people.
“In comparison, Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) salary-boosting policies fail to touch upon many of the problems I seek to solve with my proposals,” Chu said, urging Tsai to spend more time bettering her campaign policies.
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