Cases of mandatory unpaid leave are slightly up among Taiwanese companies, owing largely to one large bicycle component manufacturer. That was the word from the Labor Ministry, who released the numbers on Friday.
According to the data, in May, the number of companies requesting their employees to take unpaid leave increased by 37, bringing the total to 2,020 companies. The labor ministry has also documented a surge in the number of employees complying with their employers’ request for unpaid leave, which has risen by 830 individuals, reaching a total of 16,537. Notably, more than half of those affected are in the manufacturing industry, which sees an increase of 693 compared to the previous month. Other industries did not see major increases.
The Labor Ministry’s Huang Wei-chen (黃維琛) says the most notable case is a large bicycle component manufacturer, which put its 470 employees on unpaid leave. He says the unpaid leave is due to decreases in the company's international orders, and difficulty in selling off its current inventory. He adds that some smaller bicycle manufacturers have ended their unpaid leave period earlier than expected, so this case may not be representative of the entire industry.