Greater inclusion of middle-aged and older workers might be key to solving a serious worker shortage affecting several sectors, as society ages rapidly and many workers have postponed retirement for economic reasons, online human resource agency 104 Job Bank (104 人力銀行) said yesterday.
An unfavorable demographic trend further lends support to the hiring of middle-aged and older workers, 104 Job Bank said, citing inflation and Taiwan’s birthrate, which is the second-lowest in Asia, after Hong Kong.
“Taiwan’s labor shortage is intensifying with demand exceeding supply by 423,000 job openings,” it said, citing internal data.
Photo courtesy of National Pingtung University via CNA
The number of job openings has climbed to more than 1.04 million, and 181,000 of them welcome middle-aged and older candidates, it said.
The openings for senior job applicants soared threefold in the past three years, while interview invitations increased 2.3-fold to 327,000, it said.
Companies have increasingly turned to middle-aged and older candidates to fill vacant positions, it said.
The job bank welcomed the trend, saying that Taiwan’s labor participation rate among people aged 55 or older still lags behind Japan and South Korea.
The new pool of workers might help fill 26,000 openings in the wholesale and retail sectors, 10,000 vacancies at real-estate agencies and 8,000 openings in the hospitality industry as it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, 104 Job Bank middle-aged and senior employment division head Shelly Wu (吳麗雪) said.
Middle-aged and older workers are needed for jobs that require little team work, but lots of repetition and flexible hours, Wu said.
Financial considerations have prompted more than 80 percent of seniors to postpone retirement from age 61 to 64 so they can set aside more money, she said, adding that inflation has raised the retirement fund to NT$20 million (US$650,936) from NT$15 million.
The number of senior jobseekers rose to 58,000 last month from 47,000 monthly jobseekers three years ago, the job bank said.
However, the job market remains unfriendly to middle-aged and older jobseekers, as most companies prefer to hire young people, it said.
The time is not on the side of companies, as people aged 40 to 49 are to become the largest age bracket in the labor force, it said.
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