The Council of Labor Affairs yesterday announced stricter measures to govern the hiring of foreign workers in Taiwan.
The action was taken so that the CLA could honor its promise to limit the number of foreign workers in the country to below the 300,000 level.
Government statistics indicate that there were approximately 294,000 foreign workers in the country as of the end of last January.
Under the new policy, local manufacturers and operators of construction projects will be denied the right to hire foreign workers if they are found to have laid off a certain percentage of local workers within two years.
The majority of laborers hired for such work are from either the Philippines -- which has the largest number of foreign workers in Taiwan -- or from Thailand.
Conditions for hiring foreign caregivers to take care of patients aged between the ages of six and 70 will also become stricter.
For instance, only patients suffering from a government-decreed list of 32 "special diseases" will be qualified to hire foreign caregivers.
However, no new conditions have been laid down for hiring foreign caregivers for patients who are below six or over 70, according to reports.
The majority of foreign workers hired for such work have traditionally been hired from the Philippines.
In the past year, however, a series of spats with the Philippine government -- over both the labor issue and airline passenger numbers -- have sent relations between the two countries into a low ebb.
The Taiwan government has hinted that it may begin placing curbs on the hiring of new laborers from the Philippines.
At the same time, the government has started importing workers from Vietnam.
Government labor officials have said that Vietnamese laborers may be more suited to work in Taiwan than workers from other countries.
RSS