The problem of brain drain has grown in Taiwan as more college graduates seek employment in foreign countries that offer higher pay, National Development Council Minister Chen Tain-jy (陳添枝) said yesterday.
“The government is contemplating measures to rein in the trend, which is mainly driven by the difference in wages between Taiwan and more competitive markets,” Chen said, without giving details.
According to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, more than 720,000 Taiwanese are working overseas, with China being the largest location, accounting for 58 percent of the total.
About 5 percent of Taiwanese workers abroad hold undergraduate or higher degrees, meeting the definition of brain drain, Chen said, citing data from the immigration and labor agencies.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s largest handset chip designer, offers the highest salaries among all Taiwanese firms, but its compensation lags way behind its Chinese competitors, Chen said.
Chinese firms, especially in the semiconductor industry, have recruited workers from Taiwan to meet their technology demand and aim to boost market share, Chen said.
Besides China, companies in Japan, Singapore and the US all offer better pay, Chen added.
“The phenomenon is worrying,” he said.
Many talented workers study finance and business administration in college and about an equal number of them major in electronic engineering and computer science, Chen said.
Brain drain will further squeeze labor supply, as technology firms nationwide have had difficulty recruiting skilled engineers, he said.
The government and Micron Technology Inc — the world’s No. 3 DRAM chipmaker — have found the supply of skilled engineers “very tight” after the US-based company completed its acquisition of Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), Chen said.
As for non-technology sectors, Taiwan has increasingly lost appeal with foreign financial service providers, driving college graduates to seek work overseas, he said.
“Graduates of finance and business administration simply cannot find jobs in Taiwan because companies want them to be based abroad,” Chen said.
The government is seeking to help create a friendly environment so that foreign financial firms would consider setting up regional operation offices in Taiwan, he said.
The local market does not suffer a lack of capital, but is in need of investment that can create jobs, he added.
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS