Creating the Youth Taiwan Jobs Web site has been a waste of taxpayer money, as only 519 young job seekers had made appointments through the service since it went online in April, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) told an online news conference on Monday.
The Web site cost NT$9.9 million (US$353,218), he said.
As many college graduates are entering the job market, the service should have seen a surge in demand, but its utility rate has languished at less than 0.002 percent, he said.
Meanwhile, the budget for the Elite Taiwan Jobs program, which attracted 10 times more applicants than Youth Taiwan Jobs, has been cut by 40 percent, he said.
“The Ministry of Labor [MOL] should readjust its budget priorities to make sure resources are distributed in a way that helps first-time job seekers,” he said.
A survey by employment platform yes123 showed that 68.3 percent of applications from first-time job seekers had been declined due to pressure on employers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Chiu said.
The average time for a recent college graduate to find a job is 96 days, the longest it has been in eight years, he added.
While college graduates entering the job market could drive up unemployment rates, Taiwan Labor Development Association research fellow Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆) said that young people dropping out of the workforce is the bigger concern.
People who have given up on finding employment are not counted in official job seeker tallies, despite being unemployed, he said.
The global spread of COVID-19 led to a dip in the labor participation rate, he said, adding that the Taiwanese job market did not begin to recover from the trend until March.
“The concern is that young people feel that they would rather not work at all if they cannot find the jobs they want,” he said. “The government must encourage college graduates to seek employment despite the job market recession.”
Otherwise, none of the policies implemented to raise employment would be effective, he added.
A surge in domestic COVID-19 cases in May has prompted young job seekers to go into a “wait-and-see mode,” yes123 spokesperson Yang Tsung-pin (楊宗斌) said.
“We believe many would-be job hunters have delayed their graduation from school or are preparing to take the entrance exams for working in the public sector,” he said.
The job market shows signs of polarization, with the most sought-after jobs either being in the well-paying financial and tech sectors, or in the service sector, where no specific educational degrees are required, he said.
This might have something to do with shrinking labor demands in the construction and manufacturing sectors, he said.
Job postings have declined 20 to 30 percentage points in the tourism, food and hospitality, personal finance services, communications, culture, and education sectors, he said.
The government should implement incentives for firms to hire recent graduates, he said.
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