Thursday, December 25, 2008

Taiwanese economic distress


My student had submitted the following essay to describe recent economic distress in Taiwan. I also added comments at the end of her essay.



Student's essay:



The economic recession this year has caused serious impacts on many lives all over the world. Although some of the recession messages are heard from the newspaper and from the television reports, I still can’t clearly appreciate how much impacts would this economic problems be on the first-line workers. Last weekend, I met my high school classmates in Hsing-chu. Although they have already worked 5-6 years for employers at Hsinchu science park ,they are all terrified with the possibility of losing jobs in the face of the economic recession. One of them is working for Twiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC). In the past three months, her basic working time was adjusted from fifteen days to ten days a month. Another person is now working for the subsidiary company of United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC). Because the company intends to cut expense, the subsidiary company of UMC is to be closed down, and the workers in that subsidiary will be let-go. I am hoping the economic situation will geared towards steady growth and more jobs will be created in 2009.



Dr. Chen's comment:



The official report of the unemployment rate in Taiwan is 4.64% , or there are more than 500,000 Taiwanese are now unemployed. In reality, the economic distress is worse than the reported figures. As mentioned by this student's essay, there are many Taiwanese are taking the so-called 'no pay leave', and their monthly pays are substantially cut. The number of those Taiwanese taking 'no-pay-leave' is at least twice as much as those reported unemployed. If we take these people into account, then the unemployed and under-employed figure is about 1,500,000 which is about 12%.

Taiwanese economy is indeed at great distress.


Photo shows Taiwanese demonstrated against legalization of casino legislature.


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