`Parachute kids' offered way out of military service

The government is welcoming former "parachute kids" living in the US to return to Taiwan, where males will be allowed to perform any overdue mandatory military service in a non-military capacity, an official said yesterday.

Parachute are children who are sent overseas to be educated, often without parental supervision.

Minister without Portfolio Tsai Ching-yen (蔡清彥), currently heading a talent-seeking mission made up of government officials and representatives from 47 Taiwanese high-tech companies in the US, said former parachute kids, who have so far been unwilling to return to Taiwan because they don't wish to serve in the military, will now have a chance to return to Taiwan to work and perform their military service in an alternative capacity.

Citing science and technology as well as health and medical care as the key industries on which Taiwan will be focusing in the years to come for national development, Tsai said Taiwan needs at least 15,000 talented people in the science and technology field and that US-based young Taiwanese professionals are welcome to take advantage of the situation.

Tsai's including Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘), vice economic affairs minister, Chang Yi-chien (張義堅), deputy director of the Department of Manpower under the Ministry of National Defense, and Chen Hui-wen (陳慧文), a Ministry of the Interior director in charge of conscription affairs, have been in Silicon Valley for two days to interview former parachute kids as well as other Taiwanese-American professionals who are interested in going to Taiwan to work.

As Taiwan is on the road of industrial transition and the number of domestic science-and-technology research and development centers now exceeds 200, while major science-and-technology firms such as IBM, HP and Intel have all established research and development centers in Taiwan, there is high demand for new science-and-technology talent and professionals.

Quoting survey commissioned by the Science and Technology Advisory Group under the Executive Yuan, Tsai said Taiwan's high-tech industries, including semiconductors, image displays, digital content and telecommunications, need more than 16,400 additional skilled personnel between this year and 2005, particularly people with international market and industry experience.

The talent-seeking mission received a warm reception in the Bay Area, according to Tsai, who pointed out that before the mission arrived in San Francisco, some 500 application letters had been received for some 1,100 positions and vacancies currently available in the 47 Taiwanese science-and-technology companies.

Of the first 15 applicants who applied to work at Taiwanese companies as an alternative to military service, 14 were accepted on the first day of interviewing, Tsai added.

Some the applicants said they would not forego the golden opportunity to join Taiwan's top-notch science-and-technology companies like TSMC and United Microelectronics.