Labor Ministry trial to offer more flexible parental leave

Taipei, May 8 (CNA) The Ministry of Labor (MOL) will launch a pilot program on Thursday to offer more flexible parental leave options to the parents of young children.

Under the program, which will run through the end of the year, eligible employees will be able divide their six months of paid parental leave into up to three separate leave periods, which can be as short as five or seven days.

In cases where the participating company or government office has agreed, employees will be able to divide their leave up into additional increments as short as one day, the MOL said.

To prevent workflow issues, employees will have to apply for leave at least five days in advance, unless otherwise stated by the company.

Huang Wei-chen (黃維琛), director of the MOL's Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment, told CNA that 56 private companies and eight government offices were participating in the trial.

Companies wishing to join the trial may do so until the end of the month, he said.

As an incentive to join, the ministry said, the government will pay labor insurance premiums for participating companies, which will also be considered for the labor and economics ministries' annual "friendly workplace" awards.

Under Taiwan's current parental leave system, a mother or father is entitled to six months of parental leave paid at 80 percent of their insured salary, to be taken before their child turns three.

The six months of paid leave can be split up into two leave periods, the shortest of which must be at least 30 days.

The total amount of parental leave that can be taken is two years, of which everything above six months is unpaid.

Taiwan's generous parental leave program is one of several policies it has introduced to help reverse the country's declining birth rate, mostly to no avail.

In 2023, the number of births in Taiwan hit an all-time low of 135,571, down 30 percent from the 193,844 babies born in 2017, according to Ministry of the Interior (MOI) data.

At the same time, the number of deaths in Taiwan in 2023 topped 200,000 for only the second time in history, totaling 205,368, the data showed.