When an employee must receive medical treatment or rest on account of ordinary injury, sickness, or physical reasons, he/she is eligible for 30 days half-pay paid sick leave each calendar year according to the following provisions:
a) For the non-hospitalized sick leave, not exceeding 30 days within one year duration.
b) For the hospitalized sick leave, not exceeding one year within two years duration.
c) The total of hospitalized and non-hospitalized sick leave shall not exceed one year within two years duration.
In terms of leaves took due to COVID-19, employers need to identify first the reason why employees must take leaves. Details are elaborated below:
1. Sent into quarantine due to being contracted
a) Contracted due to occupational reason: employers should approve such leaves with full pay. When further occupational injure or disease takes place due to contracting of COVID-19, employers must make proper compensation according to Labor Standards Act.
b) Contracted due to reasons other than occupational reason: employees are able to take annual leaves, no pay personal leaves, or sick leaves mentioned in the first paragraph.
2. Not contracted but being requested by governing authority to stay home-quarantine
a) Employers do not make same manifestation of intention as governing authority does: employees are able to take annual leaves, no pay personal leaves, sick leaves mentioned in the first paragraph or negotiate with employer to re-arrange the shift schedule.
b) Employers make same manifestation of intention as governing authority does and thus request employees to not turn out on duty: employees should be entitled full pay leaves.
3. Taking care of family members who are under home-quarantine: employees are able to take annual leaves or no pay personal leaves to take care of family members who are under home-quarantine. Employers cannot no refuse such a request and should not let such a request bring effect to employees’ KPI.
Per recent draft Act to be passed, employers that pay employees who are on leaves due to the 14-day-home-quarantine or on leaves for taking care of family members who are under home quarantine order, can be entitled, when filing the income tax return, a 200% tax deduction on full or half salary paid to those employees who are on leaves due to COVID-19.
For employees whose working hours or shift schedule decrease because of the unstable operating condition under the impact of COVID-19, a new policy about employee training is recently launched. Per the new policy, employees who take training lessons by using the decreased working hours are compensated with certain allowances, and the allowance-allowed hours are raised to 120 hours per month. Given the current basic hourly rate of NT$158, the maximum training allowance granted to an employee per month is NT$18,960. On the other hand, a supplementary support to employers for covering expenses incurred due to holding the training lessons is also raised up to NT$3,500,000.
Concerning employees who are not participating training lessons but on leaves (“targeted employees”) due to the unstable operating condition under the impact of COVID-19, the government aims to release in late March a part of the Employment Stability Fund to support the subsidy paid to targeted employees. The aforementioned subsidy is about 50% the difference between employees’ labor insured base and the basic salary employees must be paid during the decreased working hours. For instance, if an employee’s labor insured base is NT$45,800, considering the current monthly basic salary of NT$23,800 to be paid to the employee, a subsidy of NT$11,000 (= (45800-23800)*50%) is expected to be granted.
Other than the above, as an amendment to the current policy, employers are also encouraged to hire workers who are unemployed for 31-day or more (“unemployed worker”). Per the amended policy, employers will be granted subsidy in NT$5,000 up to six-month for each unemployed worker hired. And the subsidy could be NT$9,000 up to twelve-month for each 3-month unemployed worker hired and NT$1,1000 to NT$13,000 for each specific unemployed worker hired.
