The number of workers on unpaid leave in Taiwan increased by more than 600 over the past week to push past the 15,000 mark, as several companies in the hospitality industry reintroduced furlough programs amid an ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases, the Ministry of Labor (MOL) said Monday.
Data released by the MOL showed the number of furloughed workers on unpaid leave across Taiwan rose to 15,013 as of May 14, up 624 from the previous report released on May 9.
The number of companies with furlough programs in place also rose by 83 from a week earlier to 2,369.
Huang Wei-chen (???), director of the MOL’s Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment, said the rise in the number of furloughed workers during the week was primarily because several employers in the lodging and food and beverage industry had been negatively affected by the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
Huang said this had led firms in this sector to reintroduce furlough programs they had previously implemented under Taiwan’s Level 3 COVID-19 restrictions last year, which were reduced to Level 2 on July 27, 2021.
Taiwan’s four-level COVID-19 alert system was discarded entirely on March 1, 2022.
According to Huang, some lodging and food and beverage businesses had brought back their furloughed employees after the government earlier this year lifted certain epidemic prevention measures as the country’s COVID-19 numbers dropped.
However, an ongoing spike in COVID-19 cases saw at least five companies in the industry reintroduce furlough programs recently, which led to around 60 employees in this sector being placed on unpaid leave for a period of one-to-two months, Huang said.
In the past week, the number of furloughed workers in the lodging and food & beverage industry rose to 1,396 from 1,135, while the number of employers in the sector with unpaid leave programs in place surged from 155 to 178, according to Huang.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel