The Ministry of National Defense earlier this week said that it has proposed pay rises for volunteer enlistees amid reports of a fourfold increase in military personnel opting out of their contracts early.
The ministry’s comments came following a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News that 1,565 voluntary military personnel left the armed forces last year by invoking an opt-out clause introduced in 2009 and paying a financial penalty, compared with 401 in 2020.
With the departures, the number of serving volunteer military personnel in Taiwan stood at 152,885 in June last year, the lowest since 2018, the ministry said.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
Major General Kao Chih-hsiung (高志雄) from the ministry’s Department of Resource Planning said that the ministry had proposed a salary raise for voluntary military personnel in the form of differential payments.
Similarly, differential payments have also been proposed for members of combat troops and non-combat personnel whose work entails technical skills, Kao said.
The proposed differential payments are pending review by the Cabinet and the amounts would be announced after the proposals are approved, he added.
Meanwhile, the recruitment rate of volunteer military personnel has fallen to 78.4 percent of the ministry’s target, from 89 percent in 2020, ministry statistics showed.
Combat troops are usually hit hardest by insufficient recruitment rates across all military units and are likely to post an even lower rate of less than 70 percent, posing a threat to the nation’s standing combat troops, said Chieh Chung (揭仲), a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight.
Asked whether the ministry would work toward automating and modernizing the armed forces with technology to make up for the perceived shortfall in recruitment, ministry spokesperson Major General Sun Li-fang (孫立方) said it is not only a goal that the ministry is working toward, but an international trend.
The ministry is devising plans for automated deployments, including those relating to the military’s strike capabilities, and necessary adjustments to the outfitting of troops in light of new military equipment the country has purchased, Sun added.
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