46% of office workers in Taiwan affected by unpaid leave: survey

Ryan Wu, chief operating officer of 1111 Job Bank, said an online survey conducted recently by his organization showed that 46 percent of Taiwan's office workers had been told to take up to 10 days of unpaid leave each month since October.

According to the survey, office workers sent on unpaid leave have seen their monthly wages reduced by one-third on average. Some 20 percent have thought of looking for another job, and 80 percent appeared to be depressed about the situation, the survey found.

Noting that some enterprises have asked some of their employees to take an additional month of unpaid leave following the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday, Wu said it seems unlikely that the strategy will be dropped by the end of March, as many people are hoping.

Meanwhile, the results of the latest survey conducted by the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs showed that among those enterprises that have a workforce of over 200 people, 18 percent have resorted to unpaid leave as a means of coping with their difficulties caused by the ongoing global economic downturn and financial crisis. It was estimated that more than 200,000 office workers had been affected.

Earlier statistics released by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) in late December showed that as a result of the unpaid leave practice, 741,000 people were working fewer than 35 hours per week in November, an increase of 205,000 people over October's total of 536,000.

Other DGBAS figures showed that the number of unemployed people in Taiwan totaled 549,000 in December 2008, the highest since October 2003. The figure represented an increase of 4.64 percent over October last year.

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