Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) Taiwan should properly prepare for the challenge its aging population poses to its economy and industrial development, Vice President Vincent Siew said Thursday. With Taiwan's birth rate now at 1.1 percent, the country will likely replace Japan as the world's most aged nation in 22 years, Siew said at a forum that featured Christopher A. Pissarides, a co-winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in economics. The event was organized by the Economic Daily News. Siew said Taiwan needs to enhance the employment aptitude of its young people, considering that changes in the population structure may alter the industrial structure and lead to structural unemployment. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the unemployment rates in countries around the world have increased, with young workers becoming the most vulnerable, he noted. Between 2008 and 2009, the global jobless rate among young people recorded the largest increase in the past 20 years, a serious problem that has triggered waves of social protests across the Middle East, Europe and the United States, he said. The issue has been highlighted in Time magazine, which named "The Protester" as its 2011 Person of the Year, Siew said. Thanks to various economic stimulus measures and job promotion programs adopted by the Taiwan government over the past three years, the country's misery index (the sum of the unemployment rate and inflation rate) stood at just 6.2 percent in 2010, one of the lowest in the world, he said. (By Lin Hui-chun and Y.F. Low)
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