The program is expected to take effect in March, with beneficiaries totaling around 120,000 throughout Taiwan.

Anticipating a possible steady rise in unemployment, the government has decided to issue labor training vouchers, on the heels of consumption vouchers distributed to encourage shopping sprees during the Chinese New Year holidays in late January and early this month.

The Cabinet-level CLA had originally planned to provide subsidies of up to 80 percent of training costs or a ceiling of NT$50,000 over a period of three years to employed people between the ages of 15 and 65.

Yet the subsidies will be raised to 100 percent if people joining the program are women who are the family breadwinner, middle-aged or senior citizens, physically or mentally challenged people, and aborigines (native Taiwanese).

But officials said yesterday that the council will now expand the plan in view of the surging unemployment rate after the financial crisis hit the world market last September.

Under the new program, the CLA will also issue vocational training vouchers to those who are forced to leave the job market during the period from July 1 last year until the end of this year.

Jobless people who have already received unemployment benefits for six months will also be eligible for the subsidies if they fail to find new employment, the officials explained.

But those still in the process of drawing unemployment benefits will have to decide either to continue receiving the jobless benefits or switch to the labor training vouchers, they said.

When unemployed people use the labor training vouchers, organizations such as colleges or universities, vocational training institutes or industry associations can get the funds in full from the CLA if the absence of a trainee does not exceed one-third of total training hours and the certificate is granted for concluding the training session.

Officials explained that the training vouchers are targeted mainly at those already on the job market and will complement the "education vouchers" to be distributed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) exclusively to college graduates who are unable to find jobs.

They encouraged people to take advantage of the vouchers to learn more useful and marketable job skills.