• Last updated:2021-10-18

Taiwan’s revised Labor Standards Act passed its third reading in the Legislative Yuan on January 10th, 2018, and will come into effect as of March 1st, 2018. There will be no hiatus in the implementation of the Labor Standards Act; the requirement that employees be given at least 11 hours’ rest between shifts will be formally implemented as soon as the revised Act comes into effect, and employers may not arbitrarily reduce employees’ rest intervals, except in the case of legally-approved special cases or where proper legal procedures are followed.

In order to ensure that the revised Labor Standards Act is implemented in accordance with the original intent of the revisions, and to safeguard workers’ rights, the following measures will be taken:

1. The Ministry of Labor will be formulating related regulations and ancillary measures to ensure that the revised Act can be implemented properly.
2. With respect to state-owned enterprises supervised by central government agencies, and business enterprises located within industrial parks etc. that are supervised by central government agencies (including regular industrial parks, export-processing zones, and science parks), priority will be given to providing guidance regarding the operation of labor-management councils; individual local government authorities will be asked to send out reminder letters as soon as possible instructing those business enterprises located within their jurisdiction that have not yet established a labor-management council to do so within a specified time limit.
3. The Ministry of Labor will be actively implementing working conditions supervisory inspections; priority will be given to the implementation of special working conditions inspections targeting state-owned and public enterprises and transportation sector enterprises, hospitals etc. that implement a shift system where there are public safety concerns.
4. The Ministry of Labor will be establishing an online notification and review system so that business enterprises and local government authorities can complete notification and review processes.

The minimum required rest period between shifts will still be 11 hours in the majority of cases. However, in the case of jobs that have special requirements, or where there are special circumstances, if the central government competent authority for the industry concerned requests that the Ministry of Labor issue a special notification, it may be possible to reduce the minimum rest period between shifts, although the minimum rest period must still be at least 8 hours. Several government agencies, including the Ministry of Health and Welfare, have already taken a preliminary inventory of jobs that have special requirements and of cases where special circumstances apply, and in the future the Ministry of Labor will be implementing review in accordance with the procedures specified by law to determine whether or not exceptions do in fact need to be made in these cases; in the cases where exceptions are made, the Ministry of Labor may specify supplementary conditions and/or a time limit. With regard to the scheduling of the one fixed rest day in every 7-day period that employees are entitled to, in principle, employees may not work for more than 6 consecutive days. This should not be taken to imply that business enterprises may schedule employees’ fixed rest days as they see fit; flexible adjustment of fixed rest days within each 7-day period will only be permitted in those industries specified by the Ministry of Labor where the central government competent authority for the industry in question has given its agreement and where one of the following four situations applies: the job involves special hours, the job is carried out in a special location, the nature of the work carried out is special, or there are special circumstances. An inventory-taking has already been carried out with respect to which jobs these requirements may apply to, and in the future the Ministry of Labor will be conducting review in accordance with the procedures specified by law.

• Source:Department of Standards and Equal Employment
• Publication Date:2018-04-17
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