AT A TIME when industry-based economies are transforming into knowledge-based economies, competition to break new conceptual ground is becoming critical. All countries are therefore aggressively cultivating their own professionals. With a shortage of hi-tech professionals worldwide, and with the high international mobility of manpower, many countries are offering a variety of incentives to attract talented professionals from overseas.
Taiwan will face a shortfall of 30,000 to 50,000 hi-tech professionals over the next three years. The island needs to recruit about 30,000 hi-tech professionals each year, while local schools can only provide 20,000 hi-tech graduates per year. The annual shortfall of 10,000 high-tech professionals has become a threat to the development of Taiwan's hi-tech industry.
Hong Kong's Admission of Mainland Professionals Scheme (
The above reasoning erroneously equates hi-tech professionals with high-level foreign laborers. To import qualified Chinese professionals into Hong Kong, locally registered companies must offer them jobs at remuneration levels comparable to the local market rates. Half a month after the scheme was implemented, statistics showed that the highest monthly wage for mainland professionals was HK$130,000 (more than NT$576,000), and the average monthly wage was HK$20,000 (more than NT$88,000).
Importation of foreign and mainland workers will not reduce local opportunities. Rather, it will create more job opportunities because the professional abilities of the immigrant workers will supplement those of the local. Examples from Hong Kong show that local job and training opportunities have substantially increased since experienced IT professionals relocated to Hong Kong from China.
Furthermore, investment in higher education and importation of professionals do not conflict with each other, as the former is a long-term plan and the latter is a short-term measure. Statistics show that the number of Taiwan's students entering local colleges and universities will have decreased by 18 percent in 10 years' time. Many well-equipped universities may therefore face a shortage of students in the future. Can we continue to expand school departments and classes if we are to maintain the quality of Taiwan's higher education in the future? What we need to do is to adjust the distribution of educational resources and to improve the quality, instead of the quantity, of our students through short-term, post-bachelor training programs.
After Taiwan and China have entered the WTO in the near future, cross-national exchanges of professionals, technologies and capital will become an inevitable trend. Since Taiwan and China share the same language and culture, the island must take more aggressive action to fight for hi-tech professionals. As national boundaries gradually vanish in the human resources market, Taiwan must face new challenges bravely and reinforce its indispensability.
Jason Yeh is an assistant professor in the Department of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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