The survey shows that Taiwanese worked an average of 18.8 hours of overtime a month, higher than neighboring countries

Taiwan News
Date: 2016/12/21
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News) — Despite a mounting awareness of labor rights, a recent official survey shows that up to 44 percent of Taiwanese workers worked overtime in 2016, with each working an average of 18.8 hours of overtime per month.

Taiwan has long been criticized for its government’s loose management of work hours and a prolonged period of low wage growth. Many employers were found to have failed to comply with all of the work hour regulations, including forcing laborers to work unpaid overtime. Attorney Chen You-xin of the Via Justice Law Office was quoted in the Apple Daily earlier as saying that many local workers in Taiwan either voluntarily or are forced to forgo their annual leave entitlements due to heavy workloads without any financial compensation.

Chen described the entitlement as a pie in the sky for the majority, citing the weak enforcement of labor laws.    [FULL  STORY]