Following a briefing at today's Cabinet meeting by the Ministry of Labor (MOL) on its action plan to help graduates find employment, Premier Mao Chi-kuo instructed the Ministry of Education to publicize the MOL's employment website TaiwanJob to youth communities and students on campuses so that they can take advantage of its resources. The MOL must continue to improve the website by incorporating information from or links to other ministries and agencies, he added.
Meanwhile, the MOL has formulated five proactive measures to help graduates secure a job quickly. They are as follows:
● Setting up online job matching services in collaboration with enterprises and job banks.
● Stationing trained personnel in the ministry's more than 350 job stations to assist in employment services.
● Holding theme-oriented job expos and recruitment events to raise job-matching success in order to provide interactive matching platforms for manufacturers and job seekers.
● Extending subsidies of up to NT$90,000 (US$2,893) to first-time job seekers working outside their district of residence and up to NT$108,000 (US$3,472) to youths who take jobs in industries short of workers, while providing employers training allowances of NT$36,000 (US$1,157) over three months for each new young worker they train.
● Offering diverse vocational training programs for youths who cannot find jobs related to what they learned in school. Up to NT$120,000 (US$3,857) will be provided to each student over two years to cover his or her training tuition fees; additionally, one-on-one training will be available, with monthly subsidies of NT$5,000 (US$161) and NT$10,000 (US$321) given to each master and apprentice, respectively.
The premier stated that the unemployment rate this May was 3.62 percent, the lowest unemployment rate for May in the past 15 years. The May 2015 unemployment rate for 15-29-year-olds was 8.26 percent, 0.02 percent lower than the previous month. These figures demonstrate the job environment and youth unemployment conditions have been improving thanks to the efforts of the government and the whole citizenry, the premier pointed out.