The number of furloughed workers in Taiwan increased over the past week, as the manufacturing sector reported more unpaid leave programs, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday.
Border controls also continued to affect the transportation and logistics industry, pushing the number of furloughed workers up even further, the ministry added.
As of Saturday, the number of workers who reached an agreement with their employers to take unpaid leave rose by 105 from a week earlier to 3,887, ministry data showed.
The number of employers who implemented unpaid leave programs rose by nine from a week earlier to 403, the data showed.
Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment Director Huang Wei-chen (黃維琛) said that two more manufacturers implemented unpaid leave programs affecting 70 and 20 employees respectively over the week.
The number of manufacturing employers implementing unpaid leave programs rose from 53 a week earlier to 55, while the number of furloughed workers rose from 685 to 779, the data showed.
The transportation and logistics industry continued to feel the pinch caused by COVID-19, with the number of furloughed workers rising from 1,270 to 1,281, Huang said.
Commenting on the growing number of domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases in northern Taiwan, which prompted the government to raise the alert for Taipei and New Taipei City to level 3 on Saturday until Friday next week, Huang said that as the raised alert level has only been in place a few days, more time would be needed to ascertain its effect.
The level 3 alert, which has been introduced in Taiwan for the first time, stops just short of a lockdown and goes into effect when more than three community clusters are confirmed in a week or more than 10 domestic cases of unknown origin are reported in a single day.
Over the week, the transportation and logistics industry reported the highest number of furloughed workers, followed by the support services sector — which includes travel agencies at 916 — and the manufacturing industry, the ministry said.
Most of the enterprises implementing furlough programs are small firms with work forces of fewer than 50 people, the ministry said, adding that these unpaid leave programs typically last for fewer than three months and involve employees taking five to eight days of unpaid leave per month.
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