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Philippine officials ask Taipei to take on more workers

The Philippines hopes to send more Filipino workers to Taiwan amid a slowdown in deployment of overseas workers during the first quarter of the year, a source at the Labor Department said yesterday.

Two senior Philippine labor officials came to Taipei last week to talk to the Council of Labour Affairs (CLA) about the possibility of sending more Filipino maids or carer givers to the country, according to the source.

"They [labor officials] wanted to explore the carers market because they could train their domestic workers for this market," the source said.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration records showed that from January to last month, the number of Filipino workers in the nation dropped to 249,681 from 280,605 for the same period of last year.

Salary adjustment

Labor officials attributed the drop to the implementation of a salary adjustment for overseas Filipino domestic workers from NT$200 (US$6) a month to NT$400.

The Philippine government has been aggressively marketing Filipino workers abroad in a bid to reduce the country's unemployment and prop up the country's anemic economic growth.

In related news, CLA Chairman Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said earlier this week that the nation's minimum wage would be adjusted in the second half of this year, probably on July 1, to make it more commensurate with Taiwan's general economic situation and the consumer price index.

Lee, who visited Washington last week to lobby for support for the nation's drive to sign a free trade agreement with the US, made the remarks while meeting with Taiwanese journalists stationed in the US capital over a cup of tea.

After extensive consultations with major industrial and commercial associations, labor unions and academic groups, Lee said a consensus had been forged for a measured adjustment of the country's minimum wage, which has been frozen at NT$15,840 per month, or NT$66 per hour, for a decade.
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