Jay

(Hereby, I would like to express my gratitude to Betty Ke and Frances Chang, who proofread my article without any reward)
還記得幾年前，當SARS橫行時，四千多人深受其害，其影響及於二十七國，並造成二百五十一人死亡。此外，愛滋病、禽流感、狂牛症等，都造成許多人們失去其財產及親愛的家人，並使你我生活在致命的威脅下。雖然這些疾病幾乎無法由現代醫學治癒，但仍有一種有效的方式來避免您受到這些威脅，並增加健康—那就是素食。

Just a few years ago, more than four thousand people suffered from SARS, and it spread to 27 countries just within a few months and caused the deaths of 251 people. Besides this disease, AIDS, bird flu, and mad cow disease have all caused many people to lose their properties and lovely families, and make you and me live under the lethal threats. Although many of these diseases are almost incurable by modern medical science, there is still an effective way to prevent you from these threats, and enhance your health—that is vegetarian diet.

Nowadays, because of the WTO and other trade oriented agreements and bodies, many commercial barriers have almost disappeared. Therefore, international enterprises have become stronger and many local small and medium companies have had to shut down. Moreover, the mechanization of manufacture, the computerization of information processing, the downsizing of the businesses, and labor-intensive industries been transferred to developing countries, all of these will cause fewer jobs for long term.

To solve this problem, most people usually think that how to stimulate economy and enlarge the need of manpower of labor market. This means may have some effects, but the trend of jobs opportunity decreasing will not change. Another approach which is more feasible to solve the problem is to reduce the need of work from some people, and Half-time Working System will be a good way to fulfill this approach. In this system, people do not work full-time, but they still can get their benefits according to the percentage that they work. For example, if a person only works a half day everyday, then he can get 50% of his benefit. Also, when he works two days a week, he can get 40%.

國際貿易的障礙，在各國紛紛加入ＷＴＯ後而降低許多。也因此，許多中小企業不敵國際企業的競爭，而紛紛關廠倒閉。再加上製造的機械化，資訊處理的電腦化，勞力密集產業外移，及企業為節省人力成本而精簡人事；工作機會，整體而言，長期必然呈現負成長的趨勢。

　　為解決此問題，一般人的思考方向，不外乎是如何刺激經濟，擴大就業市場需求。個人在此有不同的思維方式，即朝減低工作的需求思考，而「半職制」即是達成此目標的好方法。此制乃指一個人上班之工時，不如一般全職的員工，但仍享有依其工時等比例的全職員工福利。例如一個員工，每天只上半天班，則他仍可享有一般員工一半的年終獎金及退休金；若每週只上三天班，則領五分之三的福利。