The Ministry of Labor will grant fishermen affected by a bridge collapse in Yilan earlier this month, who are looking to move to factory jobs, an extended period in which to find work, a labor official said on Thursday.
Six fishermen — three Indonesians and three Filipinos — were killed when a port bridge crashed onto boats below at about 9:30am on Oct. 1. The incident also left 18 migrant fishermen — 14 Filipinos and four Indonesians, whose sole accommdation was on the boats — homeless.
Paul Su (蘇裕國), deputy director of the Cross-Border Workforce Management Division of the ministry’s Workforce Development Agency, said that the paperwork for five of the Philippine fishermen who want to transfer to factory jobs will be issued next week.
“Once they have their paperwork, they can register for factory jobs. If they do not find jobs within 60 days, we will allow them to extend the period for another 60 days,” Su said during the world conference of the International Christian Maritime Association in Kaohsiung that began on Monday and ended yesterday. “We will allow the extension because this is a special case.”
Renato Ablog, originally from the Philippine province of La Union and one of the five Philippine fishermen, said the trauma from the bridge collapse was one of the main reasons he wanted to transfer to a factory job.
“I don’t have a preference for what type of factory job I get, but the main thing is to earn a salary because I have family in the Philippines that I need to support,” Ablog said.
Of the remaining 13 Philippine migrant fishermen, two are returning to the Philippines to live, while seven are transferring to new fishing employers in Yilan, Su said.
One Indonesian is being treated in a hospital for a severe injury, and another is in the hospital recovering from hand surgery and will transfer to another employer upon recovery, he said.
Two others have found new employers, but will visit Indonesia before returning to Taiwan to continue working, Su added.
As of the end of April, there were 12,406 migrant fishermen in Taiwan, Su said, adding that 12,383 work on fishing boats, while 23 are employed at fish farms.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to