Nantou County Magistrate Lin Ming-chen Hopes to Strengthen Vocational Training and Help Young People Find Employment

On the morning of June 24, Deputy Director-General Shih Chen-yang of the Workforce Development Agency under the Ministry of Labor led assessment committee members to the Nantou County Government, where an assessment of the "2014 Employment Stability Fund Subsidies to County and City Governments for the Performance of Various Programs" was conducted in a meeting room on the sixth floor. Nantou County Magistrate Lin Ming-chen made a special trip to pay his respects and thank the ministry for its long-term assistance in helping the county government promote various vocational training and employment counseling measures. In addition to hoping that the Ministry of Labor can expand subsidies for the county government to implement more vocational training and employment counseling measures and raise the youth employment rate, Magistrate Lin also called for starting by changing young people's job-seeking attitudes and encouraging enterprises to raise salaries to promote employment, working on both fronts at once to create a new win-win-win situation for labor, capital and industry.

Nantou County Magistrate Lin Ming-chen said that in recent years the county government has actively sought subsidies from the Ministry of Labor to promote vocational training and employment counseling measures, which have been of great help to employment for disadvantaged groups, improving the job skills of unemployed workers and providing employment counseling. With the county government team actively promoting various employment measures and setting up employment service counters to match enterprises with job seekers, the unemployment rate has been effectively reduced. According to statistics from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of the Executive Yuan, the unemployment rate in 2014 was 4%, 0.3% lower than in 2013, showing that the county's unemployment rate has improved year by year. In the future, multiple channels will be brought together and social resources well used to create more job opportunities for county residents.

Nantou County Magistrate Lin Ming-chen also said that, analyzing the structure of the unemployed population, youth unemployment is an important factor in the persistently high unemployment rate. How to change young people's job-seeking attitudes, strengthen vocational training to cultivate their employment expertise, encourage enterprises to raise hiring salaries and improve the youth unemployment situation are directions that must be worked on in the future. The county government will seek more central government subsidies to implement vocational training and various employment counseling measures to help people find work. At the same time, it will start from education by promoting junior high school vocational and technical classes, cultivating professional and technical talent, helping these interested students obtain relevant licenses, and encouraging them to pursue further study and growth through the vocational and technical education system so that they can smoothly enter the workplace after graduation. In this way, the unemployment rate can naturally be gradually reduced.

Nantou County Magistrate Lin Ming-chen's governance philosophy coincides with the direction promoted by the Ministry of Labor, and the ministry hopes to fully cooperate with the county government. Deputy Director-General Shih said that raising the youth employment rate can lower the overall unemployment rate. In the future, youth vocational training programs can be implemented in cooperation to help people obtain licenses and improve their employability, but only by encouraging enterprises to continuously improve labor conditions can the goal of localizing youth employment be fulfilled. He expressed the hope that the county government will continue its efforts so that the employment rate rises year by year. Deputy Director-General Shih also pointed out that in the second half of the year the agency will allocate a large amount of subsidy funds from the Employment Stability Fund to encourage counties and cities to propose creative employment-boosting plans to reduce the unemployment rate. The whole country will be assessed in three tiers, and the best plans will be selected in a fair and reasonable way to receive subsidies to promote employment. In this regard, Magistrate Lin also instructed the Nantou County Social Affairs Department to study the matter and strive for it.

This year the assessment team assessed the implementation direction of vocational training, employment services, and foreign worker management and counseling. The committee members carefully reviewed various indicators and extensively exchanged views with the staff in charge, creating a lively atmosphere.