The number of companies in Taipei that reported layoffs in the first 11 months of this year reached 101, the most since 2011, the Taipei City Government’s Department of Labor said yesterday.
Slow economic growth and weakening global demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic might have caused the wave of layoffs, it said. The number of discharged workers reported by the firms was 3,970, the department said.
Among the companies, 27 percent are in the wholesale and retail sectors, which accounted for 1,089 layoffs, followed by those in accommodation and food services, (576 layoffs) and information and communications (458 layoffs), department data showed.
Far Eastern Air Transport discharged the highest number of employees among the firms, releasing 528 workers after announcing in December last year that it would cease operations.
Luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental Taipei discharged 207 employees after it stopped taking room reservations in June to cut costs amid slumping demand from business travelers due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.
Reporting requirements for layoffs depend on the size of a company’s workforce and are defined in the Act for Worker Protection of Mass Redundancy (大量解僱勞工保護法).
For example, a company with fewer than 30 employees is required to report to local labor authorities if it plans to discharge more than 10 workers within 60 days.
A firm with more than 500 employees is required to report layoff plans of more than 20 percent of its workforce within 60 days, or 80 workers in a single day, according to the act. Firms that fail to report layoffs face fines of between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000.
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