Taipei Times
Date: Dec 13, 2017
By: Chen Wei-han  /  Staff reporter

Premier William Lai (賴清德) urged employers to raise the starting salaries for their employees at a meeting with business leaders yesterday.

During his first breakfast meeting with the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, Lai asked business leaders, including association director Lin Por-fong (林伯豐), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) and Fubon Financial chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠), to invest in the nation’s development and follow in the footsteps of the government’s planned wage hike for public-sector employees to stimulate the market.

The unemployment rate has fallen to 3.75 percent, and 175,000 more jobs need to be created to reduce it to 2 percent as per the Singaporean standard, Lai said.

Better salaries would allow the nation to keep local talents from Chinese, Japanese and South Korean competitors, and the economy could improve if the brain drain could be slowed, Lai said.    [FULL  STORY]