Taipei, Jan. 27 (CNA) The "working poor" phenomenon in Taiwan remains a concern, despite the latest official statistics showing that the unemployment rate has fallen to below 5 percent, labor rights advocates said Thursday.
"If there is one word that can describe Taiwan's labor environment in 2010, it would be the `working poor phenomenon, ' which could haunt Taiwanese workers for a long time, " Sun Yu-lien, secretary-general of the Taiwan Labor Front, said in a press conference.
Taiwan's unemployment rate was lowered to 4.67 percent last December, showing that Premier Wu Den-yih has fulfilled his pledge early last year to narrow the jobless rate to below 5 percent.
However, the local average monthly wage of NT$42,141 (US$1451) in 2010 has fallen to the 1998 level, and the number of workers who were paid less than NT$20,000 (US$689) per month has reached 1.38 million, around 12.4 percent of Taiwan's total workforce of 11.1 million, Sun said, citing statistics released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).
The "working poor" are defined in the United States as persons who spent at least 27 weeks in the labor force during the year (working or looking for work) , but whose incomes fell below the official poverty level. The term has not been clearly defined in Taiwan.
The government did lower the jobless rate, but it failed to tackle the issue of the working poor, which could ultimately lead to a wide range of social problems such as low birth rate and high crime rate, Sun said.
The numbers show that Taiwanese workers received low wages despite their average working hours per year ranking among the top five in the world, said Huang Shu-ying, a legislator of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
On average, she said, a Taiwanese worker tallied 2,154 working hours in 2008, 51 percent more than a German worker's 1,432 hours in the same year, although the German worker's salary was three times higher.
"Without a doubt, Taiwan's labor environment has been deteriorating. It is going to take joint efforts by different agencies of the Cabinet, rather than only the Council of Labor Affairs, to solve the problem, " said Chang Feng-yi, executive director of the Taiwan Labor and Social Policy Research Association.
Chang also warned of the increasing rate of unemployed university graduates. There were more than 100,000 university graduates who were not employed for at least 12 months in Taiwan last year, which accounted for over 45 percent of the unemployed.
The number suggests that Taiwan's high education policy might not be well-connected to its labor policy and market, Chang said, since more than 160 local universities have produced too many graduates for the labor market to absorb. (By Chris Wang) ENDITEM/J