Employment situation 'grave' among grads of Taiwan colleges
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Graduates of Taiwanese colleges are now entering an increasingly competitive job market as schools continue to churn out more and more graduates, according to a Southeast Express report Tuesday.
Taiwan's unemployment rate in November was 5.86 percent, the highest among the Asian Tigers. Most of the 600,000 unemployed were fresh college graduates, said Wang Ju-hsuan, head of the Taiwan Council of Labor Affairs.
A report by the Taiwan National Policy Foundation attributed the problem to an excess of schools. "Based on the population and economies of scale, there should exist no more than 100 colleges," said Lin Chien-fu, the head of the foundation. "But during the past 10 years, the number of colleges and universities on the island increased to more than 160. These extra colleges produce a large number of poorly competitive and jobless graduates, which greatly increase employment pressure."
Last year, the Taiwanese government allocated almost 30 billion Taiwan new dollars to promote employment, such as offering internship opportunities, for college graduates. But even those measures cannot resolve the "fundamental problems," Lin said. To reduce the number of jobless graduates, the report recommended that Taiwan close 40 percent of the schools.
About 230,000 students graduate from Taiwan colleges each year with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, but many still do not meet employer requirements and are seen as inferior to graduates of vocational academies.
Lin said the government should enhance the vocational education system and encourage students to enroll in vocational schools. This would establish a high-quality talent pool and ease employment pressure.
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