Nearly 40 per cent of Taipei City civil servants and Taipei municipal school teachers said they want to quit their jobs, an in-house poll conducted by Taipei City Hall showed.

According to the results of the poll released by the city hall late on Monday, 38.51 per cent of those polled said they might leave their current posts in the Taipei City government or municipal schools within one year, while 41.5 per cent said they might move to another Taipei City government department or school in a year. Meanwhile, 28.22 per cent said they were considering ending their civil service careers altogether.

Taipei civil servants expressed conflicting views on their jobs in the poll. While 62.12 per cent of those surveyed said they were given enough time to complete their tasks, 86.98 per cent said they have to work fast to meet their targets while 76.08 per cent said the workload is “very consuming".

Of those surveyed, 44.85 per cent said they consider themselves overworked and 51.46 per cent said pressure from work has had negative effects on their daily life. At the same time, a whopping 78.41 per cent gave the city’s senior officials their seal of approval. Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je also received a high approval rating of 72.58 per cent in the poll.

Kuomintang (KMT) City councillor Wang Hong-wei pointed out that the result is not accurate, as civil servants were required to log on to the city government’s virtual private network to complete the poll, implying that the poll might have shown an over-conservative estimation of low morale and a flattering evaluation of the mayor and his senior officials due to the named nature of the poll.

A total of 61.6 per cent of Taipei City civil servants and 74.5 per cent of Taipei municipal school teachers participated in the poll.

The high workload of Taipei City government employees has recently become a hot topic. According to a recent random check conducted by KMT City councillor Chen Chung-wen, some civil servants clocked out as late as 11.59 pm.

“The civil servant [in this case] might have clocked out as late as possible in the day” and stayed to work even after midnight, Chen said.

Taipei City government deputy spokesman David Huang said that the reforms spearheaded by the new mayor and his emphasis on work ethics have inevitably increased the workload of public servants. Huang expressed the mayor’s gratitude to all Taipei City Hall employees as well as his wish to build a better Taipei City with their help.

Ko said at a questioning session at the Taipei City Council yesterday that he had ordered his secretary-general to form a task force to tackle the issue of high overtime rates among civil servants in his government. He also promised to conduct similar polls annually.