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Number of foreign live-in caregivers increases

The number of foreign live-in caregivers has increased despite stricter regulations implemented two years ago to protect domestic workers, mainly because of the low wages of foreign caregivers, Council of Labor Affairs Deputy Chairman Pan Shih-wei (潘世偉) said yesterday.

Pan made the remarks at a seminar held to solicit the opinions of social welfare groups and academics on whether the government should loosen the regulations on hiring foreign live-in caregivers.

Live-in caregivers provide homecare mainly for the elderly and for the physically and mentally disabled.

In January 2006, the CLA introduced a regulation that requires applicants seeking to hire a foreign live-in caregiver to provide medical certification and to first preview the option of employing a Taiwanese caregiver recommended by an officially approved long-term health care center.

If the applicant cannot find a suitable homecare provider via this system, then he or she may apply to hire a foreign live-in caregiver.

This measure seeks to protect the rights of Taiwanese workers, Pan said, adding that it has nonetheless proved ineffective as the number of foreign live-in caregivers in the country has continued to increase.

Offering protection to foreign caregivers in Taiwan under the Labor Standards Act (勞基法) is “technically infeasible,” an official of the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said last year after foreign labor groups demanded coverage.

As of the end of May, the number of foreign workers in Taiwan in this category was 165,517, which represents an increase of 4.92 percent over the previous year, Pan said.

The cost of hiring a foreign live-in caregiver is about NT$30,000 (US$988) per month, while it costs nearly double that amount to employ a Taiwanese homecare provider.

A representative of the Association of Spinal Cord Injury Taipei said most families that need the services of a live-in caregiver cannot afford to pay local workers, thus the level of success of the domestic program has not been very high.

Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆), a professor at National Taiwan University, said that his research showed that only 30 percent of employers would apply for Taiwanese live-in caregivers, even if the government closed the market to foreign caregivers.

The remaining 70 percent would choose to send their family members to nursing homes or care for them themselves, Hsin said.
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