There were more than 280,000 legal foreign workers in the country as of the end of May, most of whom were working in the manufacturing sector, according to statistics released yesterday by the National Police Administration.
The nation opened its job market to foreign nationals in 1989 to help resolve a shortage of manual laborers. Three years later, the government further opened the door to foreign maids and caregivers.
At the end of May, there were a total of 280,277 legal foreign workers -- 157,201 women and 123,076 men, according to police statistics.
Thailand accounted for the largest share of laborers, with 102,441, followed by Indonesia, with 73,859, the Philippines, with 66,318 and Vietnam, with 37,589.
In terms of occupation, manufacturing technicians made up the backbone of the foreign workforce, accounting for 150,106 people, or 53.56 percent of the total; followed by caregivers with 105,474 people, or 37.64 percent; construction workers with 17,020 people, or 6.07 percent; and maids with 4,627 people, or 1.65 percent.
The tallies further show that manufacturing technicians come mostly from Thailand and the Philippines, while construction workers are mainly Thais and caregivers and maids are mostly Indonesians.
Meanwhile, police authorities managed to seize 2,686 illegal foreign workers between January and May this year. Among them, 2,214 had overstayed their visas and had taken jobs without legal permits, while the remaining 472 had not overstayed their visas but did not have proper work permits.
As of the end of May, 60,619 foreign workers had absconded from their jobs, 50,986 of whom had been arrested and repatriated to their home countries. However, 9,633 of them remained unaccounted for, with Indonesians accounting for 41.1 percent and Vietnamese making up 24.01 percent.
Police officials attributed the absconcions to a combination of factors, including poor working conditions, seeking a higher-paid job or a better working environment, or absconding with the hope of staying in Taiwan after the expiration of their original work contracts.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,