As of Thursday, the Labor Ministry has begun testing flexible parental leave. This program allows workers to divide their six months of paid parental leave into three shorter periods of time, the shortest being five to seven days. Some companies and government offices participating in the trial will also allow employees to further divide their leave into increments as short as one day.
Taiwan’s current parental leave system allows parents to take up to two years of leave before their child turns three during which they can now receive 80 percent of their salary for six months. Although these six months can be split into two leave periods, the shorter period must be at least 30 days.
Deputy Director of the Labor Ministry’s Labor Insurance Department Chen Wen-tsung (陳文宗) stated that one goal of this new program is to target workers who request six months leave, but return to work early during the last month. The Labor Ministry will still provide a one-month subsidy to these individuals, even if they only work for a few weeks or days in that month.