■  Overall labor demand: The COA is: (a) promoting automation, mechanization, and other labor-saving technologies to reduce demand for labor; (b) promoting industrial restructuring and improvement in the operational environment, creating industrial value chains, and raising production value, to create incentives for young people to take up agriculture as a lifetime profession; (c) offering training in agricultural skills (with more than 4500 participant-times each year), promoting guidance of young farmers, and cultivating skilled manpower for technology-based agro-businesses.

■  Seasonal labor demand: We have taken two main measures to deal with seasonal labor demand. (1) The first, undertaken on a trial basis, was to assist 76 farmers' associations to recruit 1510 workers (giving priority to rural women, new immigrants, and indigenous people) to organize into “agricultural service teams.” These teams were then given training on how to assist farmers, agro-businesses, agricultural production-and-marketing groups, and farmers’ associations, who can employ such teams locally. The program has so far worked to introduce employers to employees for a total of 38,447 working days, helping to relieve demand for seasonal labor. (2) The second program involves students, for whom the COA promotes visits to farms and part-time work on farms. In 2015, 120 university students from seven universities participated in visits to 49 different farms to see how farms actually operate, 84 students from 13 agricultural junior colleges got on-site experience at 25 farms, and we arranged for 490 students to do part-time agricultural work at 106 farms. In addition to the wages paid by their employers, the COA provides participating students with scholarships as well as accident and injury insurance.

■  Internet recruitment: We have continued to work through the special section established for agricultural labor recruitment on the Ministry of Labor’s job-search website (http://www.taiwanjobs.gov.tw), and continued to assist agro-industries to recruit labor at the Ministry of Labor’s 359 employment-services stations nationwide. We have also continued to work with the “1111 Job Bank” to allow small farmers to put up postings looking for labor free of charge. In 2015 there were a total of 1761 postings, looking for 4726 employees. These postings got 1,923,801 hits and 26,186 responses. The COA itself assisted in industry-wide recruitment, putting up 659 postings looking for 3639 employees, successfully matching 1483 people to jobs.

■  Measures, including importation of foreign labor, targeted at specific industries:

● In the slaughtering industry the COA has received the agreement of the Ministry of Labor to allow slaughtering businesses that are not registered as factories to import foreign agricultural labor as needed to reduce pressure on the domestic workforce. Based on the number of employees for which a given business pays health insurance, that business will be allowed to hire a base level of 25% of that number of foreign laborers, with a maximum not to exceed 40%. In addition, depending upon the scale of operations, the COA will collect “employment stability fees,” to help guarantee employment opportunities for domestic workers. These measures will stabilize the labor force in the slaughtering industry, which is essential to continuity and stability in the supply of domestically produced meat.

● In the animal husbandry industry, the COA has taken a number of measures including: (a) strengthening the introduction of automated labor-saving facilities; (b) guiding farmers to adopt or create high-efficiency and high-value production systems and more corporatized business models; (c) offering of training courses, and (d) providing operational loans. These measures are aimed at assisting the second generation to take over farm operations and to train specialized management personnel. With respect to foreign labor, we have already received agreement in principle from the Ministry of Labor to allow the dairy industry to hire foreign workers. This will be helpful to sustainable development of this industry, and effectively maintain the self-sufficiency rate of liquid milk in Taiwan.

● In the fisheries industries, the Ministry of Labor has announced that it is now permissible to hire Vietnamese fisheries workers. This brings to five the number of countries from which fisheries workers may be hired. The others are Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Mongolia. In other measures, the COA amended the regulations governing incentives for graduates of maritime schools and training centers to serve at sea to create incentives for children of fishing families to stay in the industry so that we can train a new generation of core staff in operating fishing boats and ships. In addition, we have added a category for “aquaculture” to our program for recognizing the “Top 100” rural professionals. This involves guidance on a one-to-one basis, as well as workshops, seminars, and other instructional methods, to strengthen training and extension to 10 selected young people, to encourage them to return to the countryside and work in the aquaculture industry.