The Cabinet is considering the possibility of raising the salaries of civil servants, Government Information Office Minister Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
Factors that must be taken into account before deciding whether to increase wages include economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year as well as tax revenue, trade and debt in the first two months of this year, he said.
There have been calls for the government to increase civil servants’ salaries after the economy grew 12 percent in the first three quarters of last year, with growth projected to reach a 23-year high of 9.98 percent for the full year.
Supporters of the proposal believe the move would encourage the private sector to follow suit.
While addressing the Commonwealth Economic Forum earlier in the day, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised that the government would not lay off employees this year and reiterated that the Cabinet was seriously considering raising their pay.
Following Ma’s announcement, the Presidential Office later said the president hoped the executive branch would conduct a thorough evaluation of such a possibility.
Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said whether civil servants would get a pay raise this year would depend on the assessment conducted by the executive branch and that the president merely “reiterated the government’s position.”
“Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is cautiously optimistic about such a possibility, but it will still depend on the overall economy and state finances,” Lo said.
The executive branch particularly needed to take into consideration the economic growth of the fourth quarter and the tax revenues collected this month and next month as well as import and export trade and government debt, Lo said.
Following the special municipality elections on Nov. 27 last year, in which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the popular vote by about 400,000 votes, some KMT legislators called on the Cabinet to ensure benefits for civil servants to make sure that the KMT retained its support base in that segment. Some attributed the party’s poor performance to disgruntled civil servants.
Ma also told the forum that Taiwan was aiming to be a driving force behind economic integration in the region and a hub of higher education in a new rising Asia, amid a change in the order of the global economy.
As one of the Asian countries that have experienced a rapid recovery from the global financial crisis, Taiwan has also achieved a “recovery with Taiwanese characteristics,” Ma said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS