"Just protect the law" third reading! Childcare stay allowance increased to 80%, application confirmed to be extended to 9 months

Legislative President Han Kuo-yu (second from left) convened the ruling and opposition parties to discuss the "Draft Amendment to Certain Articles of the National Pension Law", the "Draft Amendment to Certain Articles of the Gender Equality Work Law", and the "Draft Amendment to Certain Articles of the Employment Insurance Law".

President of the Legislative Yuan Han Kuo-yu convened the ruling and opposition parties to discuss the draft amendments to some provisions of the "Employment Insurance Law" to discuss the retained provisions such as the proportion of childcare leave and leave pay benefits and the claiming period. In the end, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to use a side resolution to request the Ministry of Labor to update the budget to maintain 80% of the monthly insurance amount and extend the claiming period for parents to 9 months. After the second reading in the afternoon session, the amendment was approved on the third reading.

Legislative Yuan Han Guoyu convened a consultation between the ruling and opposition parties this morning (13th) to discuss the amendments to some provisions of the "Gender Equality at Work Law" and the "Employment Insurance Law". Regarding the legal protection part, during the caucus negotiations, opinions differed on whether to increase the childcare stay allowance to 80% of Article 19-2 and incorporate it into law. Minister of Labor Hong Shenhan responded that the allowance has been included in the official budget and increased to 80% of the insured amount. If it is included in the law, it is "not necessarily very suitable". He accepted it and wrote it into the accompanying resolution, and agreed to extend the allowance for parents to apply for nine months.

The accompanying resolution of the consultation pointed out that in order to help strengthen the economic support for workers during childcare leave and in response to the trend of declining children, the Ministry of Labor should continue to prepare a public budget based on the "Key Points of Wage Subsidy for Career Leave without Pay" so that the average monthly insured wage replacement rate for workers during childcare leave can reach 80%.

After negotiation among the party groups, the above three cases were sent to the Legislative Yuan for second reading this afternoon, and were finally passed on third reading. The amendment to the "Employment Insurance Act" states that Article 19-2, which regulates the childcare leave allowance, still maintains 60% of the average insured salary, but the accompanying resolution requires the Ministry of Labor to continue to prepare a budget in accordance with the "Key Points of Salary Subsidy for Childcare Leave" and provide an additional 20% subsidy from the official budget. In other words, the total childcare leave allowance can reach 80% of the average insured salary.

In addition, the added Article 19-3 clearly stipulates that if the insured person has received the childcare leave without pay allowance for 6 months, he may extend the payment to a maximum of 9 months.

Legislative Yuan Han Guoyu knocked down the gavel and announced that the draft amendment to the Legislative Yuan's "Gender Equality Work Law" passed the third reading.