In recent years, fast changes in the domestic economy and social environment have affected the labor requirement of domestic industries and as a result the structure of the labor market has changed accordingly. In the environment of business operations, due to the large-scale changes in the investment environment, labor-intensive industries have gradually moved overseas and as a result the unemployed population rose. Along with the burgeoning high-tech industry, the demands on quantity as well as quality of human resources have become evident. With the shortage of high-tech professionals, the unemployment rate stayed fairly high.
As for labor supply, due to the gradually falling birth rate, the young adult and youth population grew rather slowly, which intensifies the shortage. The prolonged compulsory education has caused the overall labor supply to grow sluggishly. Moreover, the less advantageous labor criteria of the labor-intensive industries had difficulty attracting the available human resources in the market. Therefore, the shortage of basic laborer became serious, and import of foreign laborers became necessary.
To facilitate the needs of investigating social trends and planning of labor policies, DGBAS intends to supplement the insufficiency of the employee’s earnings survey while initiating the Employment Status Survey. At the initial stage (from Oct. 1991 to Apr. 1995), this survey was conducted bi-annually with a cycle revolving around the industry and service industries. Since 1996, the survey was amended to annual execution (suspended in 1999 due to insufficiency of funds) and the scope has also been extended to both the industrial and service industries.
The social and economic backgrounds of those surveyed have differed; therefore, the questionnaires also have been designed differently. Other than the basic questions, expedient questions are designed to coordinate with the most recent social economic background and policy planning needs. Items planed in the surveys over the years roughly include the following: (I) shortage of employees and recruitment needs; (II)types of employees recruited; (III)excess employees and solutions.
The success of the production of this survey is owed to the cooperation of selected companies for providing us accurate and thorough information. DGBAS would like to extend its most sincere appreciation to the companies that participated in the survey.