About 88 percent of office and factory workers in Taiwan are interested in working overseas, with a majority of them eyeing the higher pay found in foreign markets, a survey released by the online 1111 Job Bank showed yesterday.
According to the survey, 88.15 percent of the 1,080 respondents said they were already working overseas or wanted to have the chance to do so, with 68 percent of them looking for annual salaries of at least NT$1 million (US$33,587).
While 31.57 percent of respondents said they were planning careers abroad, 11.30 percent said they are working overseas, 24.91 percent said they have worked overseas but are now back in Taiwan and hoped to work overseas again, and 20.37 percent said they wanted to go overseas but could not.
The average annual salary eyed by those hoping for an overseas job was about NT$1.5 million, much higher than the compensation offered in the local job market, the job bank said.
The average monthly income of respondents working in Taiwan was NT$49,176, while the average monthly pay of respondents working overseas was about 33 percent higher at NT$65,287.
According to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, the average regular wage in Taiwan in March was NT$40,812, up 2.59 percent from a year earlier.
Asked about recent measures offered by China to attract Taiwanese talent, 21.76 percent of respondents said the measures were beneficial to Taiwan’s youth, and 14.91 percent said the move would boost cross-strait economic cooperation.
Another 20.28 percent said the measures were nothing new, while 16.48 percent were worried they would further hollow out Taiwanese companies and lead to a brain drain.
The 31 measures were announced by the Beijing-based Taiwan Affairs Office on Feb. 28 to encourage Taiwanese to study or develop their careers in China.
The Chinese city of Xiamen later unveiled 60 of its own measures in a program that provides Taiwanese students and businesses with more comprehensive incentives to study, start businesses and live in the city.
The survey was conducted from April 28 to May 9, with an error margin of 2.98 percentage points.
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