Young people have shown considerable enthusiasm in going abroad on working holiday programs, but interest among foreign youths in visiting Taiwan under the program has been limited because of major obstacles encountered here.
More than 10,000 young Taiwanese head overseas every year on working holidays in four nations, but only 318 young adults have come to Taiwan on a working holiday over the past six years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Taiwan has signed working holiday agreements with four countries — New Zealand (June 2004), Australia (November 2004), Japan (June 2009) and Canada (last month).
New Zealand offers 600 openings and Japan 2,000 openings to Taiwanese every year. Australia has set no quota, while Canada has 700 openings for those aged 18 to 35.
Hoping that even more young Taiwanese can go abroad to broaden their horizons, ministry officials said they have worked hard to negotiate similar agreements with other countries in Europe and the Americas, but would not identify them before deals are reached.
The quotas set by New Zealand, Japan and Canada are usually filled quickly.
The Taipei Office of the Interchange Association, Japan’s representative office, said that Japan’s 2,000-person annual quota “could not meet demand.”
Travel to Australia best reflects the strong interest among Taiwanese youths in the program. Australian government statistics show it issued 2,311 visas for young Taiwanese between July 2006 and June 2007, 6,132 visas from July 2007 to June 2008, 9,240 from July 2008 to June last year, and 7,323 between July last year and this March.
In comparison, Taiwan has issued 94 visas to Australians since November 2004 and only 42 visas to New Zealand youths, the ministry said.
Because of the huge difference in the number of Taiwanese heading to New Zealand and the number of New Zealanders coming here, Taipei’s request for a higher quota from Wellington was rejected.
Taiwan has also issued 182 visas to people from Japan, again far below its 2,000-person quota.
A Japanese woman and an Australian man said the difficulty in finding short-term jobs and low pay partially explain why foreign youths are not showing more interest.
Twenty-two-year-old Hiroyo Nanai is a Japanese university student majoring in law. She took a year off from school to learn Mandarin because of its increasing popularity.
After staying in Taiwan for 10 months, she now speaks Mandarin fluently and has traveled around the nation as far as Penghu. However, she said it is not easy for foreign youths to find short-term jobs, and wages were too low compared to her country. It took her four months to find her first job in Taiwan, selling Japanese vinegar for a Taiwanese importer.
Australian Blake Warren Stacey, 27, said that working in McDonald’s in Australia paid about NT$420 per hour, compared with about NT$100 in Taiwan.
Stacey, who came to Taiwan to attend the World Games in Kaohsiung as a sumo athlete last year, was impressed by Taiwan and decided to come again this year.
He said, however, that employers are unfamiliar with the program and he often has to spend 30 minutes to an hour explaining it, with some even thinking that he is “an illegal worker.”
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