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According to the " Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) White Paper 2021" published by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, there are 1,548,835 SMEs in Taiwan in 2020, accounting for 98.93% of all enterprises. 9,311,000 people are employed by SMEs, accounting for 80.94% of the total employment in Taiwan. The sales of SMEs amounted to NT$23 trillion 555 billion 513 million, accounting for more than 50% of the total sales, indicating that SMEs are an important cornerstone of economic stability and job creation.
In Taiwan, SMEs have the advantages of quick business decisions, relatively low costs and risks, and responsiveness to the market. Furthermore, private family-run enterprises have a single order and strong executive power which can quickly coordinate internal resources to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. However, SMEs are relatively weak in terms of technology, capital, human resources, information acquisition, and managing as well as responding to labor laws including safety and health issues.
This study investigates the effectiveness of labor inspection on SMEs, to discover the insufficiency and challenge of the labor inspection system. It is hoped that this study can contribute to the improvement of labor inspection policies particularly addressing SMEs so that SMEs have the capability to effectively carry out labor inspection-related operation counseling, training, and visits, with the ultimate goal of improving workplace safety and health standards as well as reducing the occurrence of occupational injuries in SMEs.
The study found that an uncertain policy environment, public representatives' concern, insufficient inspectors' manpower, different opinions on labor laws as well as regulations, and lack of information transparency are the reasons why labor inspections cannot be implemented at present. These factors are likely to cause difficulties for labor inspectors in performing labor inspections and a lack of public awareness of labor inspections among SMEs. Measures to improve the current labor inspection dilemma include clear allocation of authority as well as responsibility between the central and local governments, provision of a clear legal opinion from the central government for local governments to follow, and resources to support the labor inspection administrative system. At the labor inspector level, the provision of professional courses for inspectors' practical operation, and improvement of welfare benefits as well as promotion channels for labor inspectors, are possible ways to effectively solve the current dilemma. The government should provide counseling to strengthen SMEs’ knowledge of workplace safety and health and make specific commitments to help establish a good working environment and working conditions in order to protect labor rights and labor safety, so that SMEs can get on the right track in their operations.
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