From the perspective of corporations, whenever it is difficult to make a forecast for the future, it makes sense to be more conservative in terms of personnel recruitment, Cindy Chen, manager of Adecco Taiwan, said Nov. 9. "That explains why an increasing number of enterprises tend to recruit more dispatched employees," Chen noted.
The Switzerland-based Adecco is a world leader in human-resource solutions, providing a variety of services ranging from temporary staffing and outsourcing to training and consulting. The company has over 6,900 offices in 70 countries. Since entering Taiwan's market in 1989, Adecco has become the largest human-resource firm with branches islandwide. The United States-based Manpower Inc. and the Taiwan-based 104 Human Resource Corp. are two other leading manpower companies in Taiwan.
Taiwan's employee-dispatch sector consists of 1,400 related firms. Around 50 of them are engaged in white-collar positions, with the rest offering blue-collar workers and foreign labor. The number of dispatched employees currently working in the marketplace is estimated to be near 130,000 and, according to government statistics, that figure is expected to grow to 300,000 in the near future.
"The manpower-dispatch industry was brought to Taiwan by foreign corporations," Steven Su, general manager of 104 Human Resource Corp., a branch of 104 Corp., said Nov. 6, adding that it originated in the United States in the 1920s. During the 1940s and the 1960s, the sector rose rapidly in developed nations, such as the United States, some European countries and Japan. Su remarked that the sector grew annually by 9 percent to 17 percent in these countries after 1990.
Taking Japan as an example, Su explained that during the period of economic uncertainty around 2000, over 80 percent of Japanese enterprises utilized dispatched employees to lower their operating costs, with some companies filling 50 percent of its requirements with temporary workers. "From these examples, we can see that dispatch industry has matured in the developed countries and will soon flourish in developing ones," Su claimed.
The 104 Corp. has operated the nation's largest online job bank called 104 Job Bank since 1996, serving both employees and employers. In addition to its regular employment services, the company started to offer labor dispatch and so-called "head-hunting" services in 2004, based on an enormous database that has turned itself into the most utilized manpower agency in Taiwan. "What prompted us to offer such services is of course the surging demand from our enterprise clients," Su noted, adding that it was relatively easy for his company to cash in on the latest need, due to its plentiful experience in handling manpower-related issues.
"The biggest advantage in the labor-dispatch sector is elasticity," Chen said, "which helps our clients save on personnel expenses, while allowing employees to choose from a variety of dispatch jobs, so they can work out what kind of career to pursue in the future." In terms of economics, she said, the minimum amount spent and the maximum profits gained are what a company cares about the most. Human-resource companies are also good at selecting suitable workers to satisfy a company's desire to save time and money when trying to fill vacancies. "It is important to satisfy a client, but the quality and performance of a dispatched employee is vital too, as that reflects the firm's reputation," she added.
Citing Adecco as an example, Chen remarked that after an enterprise outlines its staff requirements, the human-resource company decides which applicants are the most qualified, and then presents three candidates for the client to choose from. "It seldom happens, but if they're not satisfied with our choices, we'll keep offering people until they find what they are looking for," she stated, saying that Adecco's fee is in proportion to the salary of the hired person. "For a company, the cost of hiring the wrong employee is so high that it prefers to ask for the services by a professional human-resource firm," Chen said.
In the past, part-time work was always paid poorly and offered few opportunities. It is therefore not surprising that people often have the negative impression of a dispatch job being labor-intensive and with meager wages. These days, however, Chen claimed, "The market needs more and more technicians or software designers because high-tech firms have mushroomed all over the world." Vacancies for dispatched workers offered by these high-tech companies often pay more than regular vacancies at the same firm, although welfare agreements would not be so agreeable, she added. "Some of our clients even end up finding permanent employees they truly want from the dispatched laborers they recruit for a short-term project," Su said, explaining one of the reasons why vacancies for dispatch jobs are on the rise.
In the meantime, it is important for people to realize the difference between outsourced work and dispatch jobs, Su stated. When a company outsources part of its business to a human-resource agency, the latter has to take full responsibility for hiring capable personnel, training them with the necessary skills, and handling any other requirement of the people hired, while the outsourcing company only has to pay whatever fee both parties have agreed upon in advance. A dispatched laborer, on the other hand, is basically under the supervision of the client company, but receives his paycheck and bonuses from the human-resource company, he said.
Su continued by saying that a significant boost to Taiwan's manpower-dispatch sector was the launch of the nation's new retirement system in July 2005. The system allows laborers to build up their retirement fund, even if they change jobs often. "The newly executed system makes people more willing to do dispatch work because their rights as laborers are legally protected, no matter they choose permanent or temporary jobs," Su stated.
As an example of the flexible nature of dispatch work, Su cited the case of his employee, Darlian Liu, who serves as one of the directors at the company's information section now. Liu took several dispatch jobs during college and used to work for Acer Inc. as a dispatched employee after graduation. The Taiwan-based Acer, after the completion of its acquisition of Gateway Inc.--the third-largest personal-computer vendor in the United States--will become the third-largest PC manufacturer in the world.
As a software program designer, Liu stayed in Acer for one year and seven months, Su noted. Afterward, the company inquired whether Liu wanted to be a formal employee, but he opted to try something different. Ultimately, Liu ended up working for Su because he can share his plentiful experience and explain the merits of dispatch work to those who are interested to learn more, Su remarked.
To demonstrate the high demand for dispatched workers, Chen recalled when U.S. golfer Tiger Woods was invited to visit Taiwan several years ago. "Such a large event required the efficient mobilization of hundreds of temporary staff in a very short period of time," she said, pointing out that despite the number of blue-collar workers in the labor-dispatch sector exceeding the number of white-collar workers, there was still plenty of opportunities in the office environment.
Another major boost to the industry would be the passing of a dispatched worker protection act drafted by the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs. The act is expected to clarify the relationship among the client firm, human-resource company and dispatched employees and the responsibilities each should shoulder.
In related news, the number of new job vacancies in the domestic service industry this year is predicted to be 14,875 in comparison with the same time last year, according to Nov. 17 statistics released by 104 Job Bank. The job agency started a collaboration with 7-Eleven, the nation's largest convenience store chain operated by President Chain Store Corp., to help local small- and medium-sized shops find employees by using the multifunctional teller system installed at any convenience store.
The job bank claimed that the production of the service sector accounts for three-quarters of Taiwan's total gross domestic product, which signifies that the employment market has become more service-oriented. This fact was even recognizable back in 2004 when the Executive Yuan passed the Guidelines and Action Plans for Service Industry Development, which partly focused on the manpower-dispatch industry. "It's foreseeable that the surging demand for vacancies in the service sector will generate positive impetus to the manpower-dispatch sector," Su said.
Write to Allen Hsu at allenhsu@mail.gio.gov.tw