The number of newborns in Taiwan has dropped to 140,000 a year from a peak of 440,000 a year. The nation is approaching a serious shortage of labor and it will happen before these 140,000 newborns grow up.
Taiwan has been dealing with a comprehensive shortage of educated and skilled labor in the manufacturing and service industries, including in semiconductors, construction, catering and agriculture, which is affecting national development.
Unfortunately, the government still relies on outdated concepts, believing that migrant workers would “steal jobs” from local workers. Such a protectionist mindset shows a wrong understanding of market economies and should be abandoned.
Industry consists of upstream and downstream sectors, and every job is different. The relationship between industry chains and jobs is complementary.
Taipei has the highest concentration of job opportunities and offers the highest remuneration. More than half of the working population in Taipei are skilled workers from other cities and counties. If the government insisted that only Taipei residents could seek work there, the consequences would be dire.
Singapore and Israel are strong and rich countries precisely because they take advantage of imported labor. As tiny as Singapore is, 1.4 million foreigners work in the country, or 40 percent of its working population. Malaysia has a population of 33 million, but relies on 3 million foreign workers.
Taiwan still considers the labor force from a protectionist perspective and governmental departments have tried to fend off foreign workers when designing labor policy.
Foreign labor has been treated as an “add-on.” Only a small number of migrant workers can enter and work in Taiwan, and they are severely regulated. An application to work in Taiwan requires numerous details about what industries the applicant has worked in and what job they would do here. It also comes with many prohibitions.
Facing a comprehensive labor shortage, Taiwan must address the issue of its low birthrate. In the near future, the number of local workers will decrease year by year. Migrant workers are not just an “add-on” to Taiwan’s labor force, but an essential resource. If the government refuses to change its protectionist mindset, Taiwan’s progress will be seriously hindered.
The semiconductor industry wants to secure as many workers as it can, but the labor force in Taiwan is insufficient. Semiconductor companies have been trying to grab workers from the manufacturing industry, leading to a severe shortage in that sector. The manufacturing industry pulls workers from the service industry, and so on.
Entrepreneurs in the service industry say that they would hire anybody, as long as they have hands and feet. A regular college graduate can look forward to more than five jobs to choose from. It is no longer necessary to “protect” local workers.
The labor shortage is also a national security issue. With only 140,000 newborns this year, the semiconductor industry is likely to snatch up a significant number of them when they enter the workforce. Taiwan’s security to an extent depends on semiconductor companies, not just for economic growth, but also strategic planning, but people are also needed in the armed forces.
Rather than “protecting” local workers, Taiwan should open up to foreign workers. This would be the best way to optimize the nation’s resources.
Attracting more migrant workers would not only be beneficial for national defense, but also for diplomatic relations. If China were to attack Taiwan, countries with people working here would pay more attention.
Taiwan is a nation founded upon industry and commerce. Its vitality is dependent on the development of the industrial economy. With a lot of foreign workers, diplomatic relations would be bolstered. Together with the “silicon shield,” national security would be enhanced.
It is time to revise Taiwan’s labor policies and lift unnecessary restrictions on foreign workers.
Tommy Lin is director of Wu Fu Eye Clinic and president of the Formosa Republican Association.
Translated by Emma Liu
When 17,000 troops from the US, the Philippines, Australia, Japan, Canada, France and New Zealand spread across the Philippine archipelago for the Balikatan military exercise, running from tomorrow through May 8, the official language would be about interoperability, readiness and regional peace. However, the strategic subtext is becoming harder to ignore: The exercises are increasingly about the military geography around Taiwan. Balikatan has always carried political weight. This year, however, the exercise looks different in ways that matter not only to Manila and Washington, but also to Taipei. What began in 2023 as a shift toward a more serious deterrence posture
Reports about Elon Musk planning his own semiconductor fab have sparked anxiety, with some warning that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) could lose key customers to vertical integration. A closer reading suggests a more measured conclusion: Musk is advancing a strategic vision of in-house chip manufacturing, but remains far from replacing the existing foundry ecosystem. For TSMC, the short-term impact is limited; the medium-term challenge lies in supply diversification and pricing pressure, only in the long term could it evolve into a structural threat. The clearest signal is Musk’s announcement that Tesla and SpaceX plan to develop a fab project dubbed “Terafab”
China’s AI ecosystem has one defining difference from Silicon Valley: It is embrace of open source. While the US’ biggest companies race to build ever more powerful systems and insist only they can control them, Chinese labs have been giving the technology away for free. Open source — making a model available for anyone to use, download and build on — once seemed a niche, nerdy topic that no one besides developers cared about. However, when a new technology is driving trillions of dollars of investments and leading to immense concentrations of power, it offered an antidote. That is part of
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
RSS