Taipei - Taiwan, after issuing shopping vouchers, plans to issue education vouchers to allow unemployed college graduates and young white collar workers to receive vocational training while waiting for jobs, an official said Tuesday. "We will use 20-30 billion Taiwan dollars (600-900 million US dollars) to issue the education vouchers, and will issue them as soon as the cabinet has approved it," said Liao Yao-tzung, secretary-general of the Council for Economic Planning and Development.
Chang Heng-yu, a council official in charge of human resources, said that Taiwan began to create jobs for blue collar workers at the end of 2008, so it now wants to create jobs for white collar workers.
"We want to help unemployed college graduates and white collar workers to go back to school for further training (while waiting for jobs)," he said.
The Education Ministry said college graduates who have been unable to find work - or have been laid off - for three months can apply for the education vouchers.
The vouchers are expected to be issued in April and be valid for one year, during which each recipient can receive vocational training and get ten academic points.
The recipients can use the opportunity to learn a second skill, like a foreign language or work skills, which will enable them to apply for jobs or a license upon completion of the training, the ministry said.
Taiwan hopes to cut the jobless number by 100,000 through the education voucher and another vocational training projects.
Taiwan's jobless rate soared to 5.03 per cent in December 2008, with nearly half a million people out of work.
The education voucher plan comes on the heels of issuing shopping vouchers on January 18, to boost the economy which has been hit by the global financial crisis.
Each coupon is worth 3,600 Taiwan dollars, and can be used on shopping or for other services like paying for taxi rides, staying in a hotel, buying plane tickets or even singing in a karaoke parlour.
The government hopes to raise Taiwan's gross domestic product by 0.64 percentage points by issuing the vouchers, which have cost the government 82 billion Taiwan dollars.
