“Giving young people chances is to give Taiwan opportunities,” Labor Affairs Bureau of Taichung City Government expressed. Mayor Lin Chia-lung emphasized much on job opportunities and the promotion of wage standard. In addition to holding huge scale employment matchmaking fairs continuously in different districts, it also implements of the “Taichung Dream Project” to encourage young people to start up. In the aspect of agriculture, it implements the “Young Farmers Scheme” to attract young people to return to their homeland and join the agriculture industry. It expects young people to earn higher wages with higher professional know-how. It also encourages young people to stay and take root in Taichung. As Taichung is becoming the second largest city in Taiwan, the city government is going to create more benefits to attract more people to move to Taichung.

Since 2015, Taichung City Government has launched the “Taichung Dream Project” to assist young people to start up. It chooses 20 to 40 young people from 108 applicants to reside in the 3 different startup bases in Zhai Xing Villa in Tanzi, Shenjin Village in the West District, and Guanfu New Village in Wufeng. Each person will be subsidized NT$33,000 every month for the maximum of 2 years to provide them security and comfort in starting up. It also provides operation guides to help young people solve problems in starting up. It will adjust its patterns of guidance to help young people enhance their independency in starting up. Overall, it aims to promote the accomplishments of starting-up.

Labor Affairs Bureau expressed that the Taichung Dream Plan is not only assistance provided to help young people start up, but also the industry clusters formed by the interlinking of the polices of different government departments. With the construction of the bases, grants and subsidization, and operation guides, it attracts young people from different parts of Taiwan to fulfill their dreams in Taichung. Over the past two years, many young people have been active in apply for government projects and subsidizations with success and won in various contests. Up to now, there have been about 30 successful young entrepreneurs. It highlights that the startup capabilities of these young people have been assured by different sectors. Moreover, these three startup bases have already become famous sightseeing spots, and places must visit by young entrepreneurs from other counties and cities and institutions during their trips for startup learning.

In addition, to allow young people employed stably in Taichung, the Labor Affairs Bureau also implements the Young People Stable Employment Subsidization Plan to encourage young people at the age below 29 in Taichung to be employed with the help of the Labor Affairs Bureau. When they are employed for 6 months, they will be awarded NT$22,000. It also already provided stable employment opportunities up to 65.7%, higher than the employment rate (about 54%) of regular young people in the society.

To encourage young people to startup in agriculture, the Agricultural Bureau has launched the “Young Farmers Scheme” since 2015. In addition to providing the monthly allowance of NT$ 30,000 to allow them learn agricultural knowledge with peace of mind, commercial and agricultural groups, agricultural schools and more are invited to recommended expert farmers to build up legacy counseling teams. Likewise, students can learn related skills with different mentors according to their interests. In short, it helps continue the professionalism in farming.

Offering diverse courses and select expert farmers, the scheme teaches young people to become farmers, from the process of production, packing, marketing, and even after services in marketing own products. It helps decrease the primary cost of and investment in agricultural production to increase their benefits and income from agriculture. With these terms, it aims to promote young people incentives in becoming farmers. Encouraging young people to return to their hometowns and engage in agriculture, it attracts new talents to rural villages. There was the total of 72 people graduated from the first anniversary in 2015 and the second anniversary in 2016. And 91.7% of them remained in the agricultural industry after the training, accomplishing a fruitful result.

To job seekers, the Labor Affair Bureau continues to hold huge scale employment fairs to attract major businesses to provide job opportunities. In last year, it collaborated with local manufacturers – the “10 major industries with the most job vacancies” to held an employment match making fair to encourage young people to engage in industries that were short of labors to made up their deficiencies in human resources.

Taichung City Government expressed that it will continue to collaborate with local and central government startup resources, such as the Women Entrepreneurship Flying-geese Program, Case Consulting Program of Upgrading and Transformation Type for Enhanced Consulting Type Industries of Ministry of Economic Affairs, Angel Project, Dream Real Project of the Ministry of Culture, Startup Project for Indigenous Peoples, Taichung Mortgage Project, SBIR Project, Startup Matchmaking, accelerator counseling, and incubation resources at schools and more. They provide different resources for young entrepreneurs at different stages of their startup. They help lessen the economic burdens at the primary stage of starting up and guide more young people to build and fulfill their dreams in Taichung.