The biggest problem for Indonesian workers in Taiwan are the “exorbitant” brokerage fees, which are unacceptable, Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Workers official Agusdin Sabiantoro said on Friday.
Sabiantoro said that a major problem for his nation’s migrant workers has been the excessively high fees manpower brokers charge them to work in Taiwan.
An Indonesian worker arriving in Taiwan has to pay brokers about NT$60,000 (US$1,906) in related expenses, Agusdin said, after his nation warned again on Wednesday that it was planning to stop sending domestic workers to Taiwan in 2017.
The payments represent a heavy burden for Indonesian workers and are unacceptable according to International Labor Organization regulations, he said.
Sabiantoro said Indonesian workers have had to go along with Taiwanese regulations in the past, but Indonesia plans to begin working with Taiwan on rules and other concerns related to the welfare of these migrant workers.
As of the end of January last year, Indonesia had the biggest contingent of foreign nationals working in Taiwan, accounting for 41.6 percent, or 231,489, of the 556,412 foreign workers in the nation, Ministry of Labor statistics showed.
Of the 221,709 foreign workers involved in human health and social work activities, mostly serving as full-time caregivers for elderly Taiwanese, 176,117 are from Indonesia, the figures showed.
With Taiwan’s population aging rapidly, demand for these caregivers is likely to grow, but Indonesia says that it will cut off the supply of such workers to the rest of the world in the next few years.
Agency of Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers head Nusron Wahi on Wednesday said that his nation would stop sending domestic workers to the Middle East starting this year as the first step in the pullback.
It will then gradually reduce the number of domestic workers sent to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Macau and other countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region, beginning in 2017, he said during an interview with Indonesian media Web site Liputan6.com.
Rather than sending domestic workers overseas, Indonesia plans to begin exporting trained and skilled workers, he said, adding that the Indonesian government is preparing to provide training programs.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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