That Taiwan is experiencing a talent drain is no secret, and a report released on Monday only highlighted the imbalance between talent outflow and inflow, with 728,000 Taiwanese professionals working overseas in 2016, and only 30,928 foreign professionals working in Taiwan, along with 676,142 non-professionals.
The obvious problem, which has been discussed for years, is Taiwan’s low salaries. The government has raised the minimum wage overall, albeit not by much, as well as salaries for government employees, but minimum wage earners are not the “talent” that is leaving Taiwan for greener pastures.
There are also limits to what the government can do — all the Executive Yuan can do is to encourage or press private firms to follow suit.
With a corporate culture that still seeks to squeeze as much out of employees as possible, it is understandable that people would want to leave, and nobody wants to come work here. A report in April showed that Taiwan’s working hours are the sixth-highest in the world, with an average of one worker dying every 12 days due to overwork. So it is not surprising that one survey has shown that 88 percent of respondents hoped to work overseas.
Despite government regulations, news reports continue to appear about employees not being paid overtime despite working 12 hours a day, with a May report by the Taiwan Nurses Union showing that nurses were owed NT$3.7 billion (US$120.86 million) in overtime wages per year.
Just ask any Taiwanese office worker and you will hear stories about companies forcing their employees to clock out after hitting a certain amount of hours, but making them continue to work, or finding other ways to skirt the regulations.
Again, this is a problem that requires firms to think long-term and abandon their old ways of thinking, as Taiwan is not as competitive as it once was and if such abuses persist, their prospects will suffer. They need to comply and work with the government instead of always looking for short-term gains. This change needs to happen soon, as the situation is not getting any better.
As far as talent influx, Taiwan can only hope that the government and corporate push to recruit Southeast Asian professionals will yield significant results soon, as it is unlikely that Taiwan’s working conditions would be attractive to the average Western professional without any significant interest in Asia looking to move here long-term.
The measures revealed earlier this year to allow young migrant workers and international students to stay in Taiwan as medium-skilled workers are a good start.
However, there is still much discrimination against Southeast Asians, not to mention the continued mistreatment of migrant workers, with people even complaining that they are stealing jobs from Taiwanese. Society should be more welcoming to these people, no matter what talent level they are, as the nation needs them more than people might think.
Meanwhile, a poll released on Sunday found that more than 70 percent of Taiwanese are worried that the quality of higher education is deteriorating, with 77.7 percent citing the gap between skills and industry needs.
The brain drain also plays a part in this, with academics leaving Taiwan for better jobs overseas.
This also needs to change, as it could contribute to companies being unwilling to pay workers higher wages because they are not getting what they need, and even need to spend resources to train them.
Vocational education is a good step forward, but Taiwan also needs better programs for high-level positions.
There is so much that needs to be done to fix the overall issue, and it will take time, but it requires all involved parties to work toward the same goal.
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