TAIPEI: The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has decided to make jobs available to Taiwan's most disadvantaged people as part of the administration's efforts to boost employment in 2010, CLA chief Wang Ju-hsuan said yesterday.

Noting that helping the less-privileged to return to the workforce is the council's key task this year, Wang said the CLA has initiated a program, dubbed the "Setting-Sail Project," to offer 20,000 jobs to people who are middle-aged or older, physically or mentally challenged, single parents, and those who have been unemployed for at least a year.

Under the project, the CLA will offer salary subsidies to encourage employers to hire these "least-privileged" people.

According to the CLA, employers of an individual from any of these least-privileged groups will be entitled to wage compensation of NT$17,280 ($540) per month for the first three months of employment. After that, there will be monthly compensation of NT$10,000 for nine months, the CLA said.

Meanwhile, another job-boosting program initiated by the CLA, dubbed the "Dawn of Employment," will see public service departments provide 15,100 vacancies for short-term jobs in the coming year, Wang went on to say.

These temporary workers will be employed as social workers or given work in the health, tourism and publicity sectors, she added.

The CLA has also planned to arrange assistance for 12,600 victims of Typhoon Morakot - one of the worst natural disasters in Taiwan in the past several decades - and those rendered unemployed because of the typhoon to work in the storm-affected areas this year.

The newly-created 47,700 jobs, plus 34,300 job openings that the CLA offered previously as measures to help the less-privileged find work, show that the CLA is creating some 82,000 jobs this year, Wang said.

The 82,000 jobs account for roughly 80 percent of the 103,000 jobs the administration has vowed to create this year, she said.

Meanwhile, "Premier" Wu Den-yih said the government-initiated jobs should be distributed to those who really need jobs based on the principles of fairness, openness and transparency.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 01/29/2010 page2)