Workers from the Philippines are to be allowed to travel to Taiwan for work in two or three weeks at the earliest after Taipei and Manila on Monday signed cooperation guidelines on worker recruitment, management and service.
The agreement was reached in Taipei at the sixth ministerial conference between the two nations’ labor ministers.
The Philippines agreed to provide information on worker quality, while Taiwan agreed to help Filipino workers find work with good employers.
The two sides are to streamline the application procedures for direct hiring and help employers hire Filipino workers directly without having to go through brokers.
The Ministry of Labor said that after the signing of the guidelines, the Philippines would put information on worker quality into a database so prospective employers would be able to directly hire employees in the manufacturing and construction sectors, or caregivers and maids for institutions or families.
After their jobs have been confirmed by the employers, the workers would be allowed to travel to Taiwan within two or three weeks, the ministry said.
This would save employers introduction fees, which are NT$20,008, or the minimum monthly wage, it said.
It would also mean that employers are not saddled with registration fees, the ministry said.
This measure is also set to benefit workers, who are set to save an average of NT$24,000 per person that they previously had to pay to brokerage firms, it said.
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