The Senior Workforce Development Service Center has helped about 2,000 older people, 90 of whom are older than 70, find jobs since it was founded three years ago, a Ministry of Labor official said on Tuesday.
Since 1993, Taiwan has been an “aging” society, with people older than 65 totaling 7 percent of the population, official data showed.
From next year to 2026, the nation is expected to become an “aged” society, with 14 percent of the population older than 65, or even a “hyper-aged” society — which the UN defines as 20 percent of the population older than 65.
Many older people want to work again, but usually encounter difficulty in finding employment due to stereotypes about their age and physical impediments, center Director Yu Ai-chun (余璦君) said.
However, the center has found that older workers do not necessarily perform worse than younger people, she added.
While senior workers might be less capable in terms of physical condition or computer skills, they can leverage their richer experience, higher stability and greater flexibility in dealing with people in the workplace, Yu said.
Employers would be able to see the advantages of older people if they granted them job interviews, she said.
Over the past three years, the center has recommended senior workers to the human resources departments of many businesses and the directors of social organizations, she added.
Thanks to such direct communication, a number of business leaders have set aside stereotypes about senior workers and offered them work opportunities, Yu said, adding that some companies have even asked the center to introduce more older people.
About 1,500 businesses have joined the center’s job-seeking program for older people, occasionally offering them work opportunities, she said.
As of June, the center had helped nearly 2,000 of 3,600 applicants find employment among 12,000 job openings, she added.
In a bid to improve jobseekers’ competitiveness, the center this year began to hold training sessions in popular fields such as administration and services, Yu said.
Before the end of the training programs, the center is to take applicants to actual workplaces, which allows them to better understand their future work and gives employers an opportunity to observe senior workers, she added.
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