The Tourism Administration has expanded regulations for foreign interns in the hospitality industry to include students in sports and leisure, management, English and Chinese fields, in a bid to ease labor shortages.
Previously, only students majoring in hospitality, culinary arts or tourism were eligible to intern in Taiwan.
The new regulations, which took effect yesterday, expand student eligibility, adjust required application documents and strengthen the management responsibilities of internship host organizations.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
The agency said it revised the rules in response to growing demand for international talent in the hospitality industry.
To avoid foreign nationals posing as students to come to work in Taiwan, foreign students must be enrolled in schools listed in the Ministry of Education’s directory of foreign institutions, and have completed at least one semester of study, the agency said.
If the school is not on the ministry’s list, it must be accredited by the relevant authority in that country, it said.
Applicants must also pass an interview by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it added.
To protect the rights of foreign interns, the regulations require host organizations to provide insurance protection during the internship period, the agency said.
Internship approval would be revoked in cases involving forged documents, failure to follow the approved internship plan, missing interns or interns participating in activities beyond the scope of their visa, it said.
Depending on the severity of the contravention, the host organization might be barred from applying for foreign interns for three months to two years, it said.
Tourism Administration data showed that the hospitality industry has a shortage of 5,000 to 6,000 workers.
The Ministry of Labor said that as the program involves internships, rather than general foreign labor, it is outside the scope of its regulations.
For foreign nationals to work in the hospitality industry, they must either have graduated from a relevant program or completed 80 hours of training, it said.
The ministry added that it is drafting regulations that would allow foreign students to apply for hotel-related jobs if they have completed training by a relevant organization.
In related news, Vietnam and Taiwan have signed a new agreement to deepen their cooperation in education, the Ministry of Education said in a statement yesterday.
The number of Vietnamese studying in Taiwan has increased rapidly since the education ministry signed an agreement with Vietnam in 2019, it said.
Education ministry data showed that there were 39,695 Vietnamese students in Taiwan in the 2024 academic year, accounting for 33.22 percent of the total of 123,188 foreign students and making Vietnam Taiwan’s largest source of foreign students.
Indonesia and Malaysia ranked second and third, with 16,212 and 9,686 students respectively, the data showed.
The new agreement would help promote academic exchanges, establish sister-school partnerships, develop language training programs, offer scholarships to encourage bilateral studies and advance training for educators at all levels, the education ministry said.
Southeast Asian countries have experienced rapid economic growth in recent years, leading to strong demand for professionals or skilled workers, Ministry of Education Secretary-General Lin Po-chiao (林伯樵) said.
Taiwan’s higher education and vocational training, well-regarded in Asia, aim to export quality programs to help ASEAN and South Asian countries develop needed talent, Lin said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the new agreement between Taiwan and Vietnam builds on the education cooperation established between the two countries in 2017.
It updates the cooperation in response to current international trends and bilateral needs, covering multiple fields including education, academic research, language exchange and talent training, it said.
Additional reporting by Huang Chin-hsuan
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