A Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) plan to lift the ban on non-profit organizations serving as employment brokers for foreign workers is expected to stimulate robust competition in the employment-services sector and lead to better provision of appropriately qualified caregivers to serve disabled and elderly people with special needs.
Liao Wei-ren (
"At the same time, those groups would also be able to promote the common interests of all caregivers," Liao said.
The lifting of the ban would be expected to lead to an increase in the importation of foreign workers appropriately trained to meet the special needs of disabled and elderly people by enabling non-profit organizations to give full rein to their expertise in the field.
The council is scheduled to pass the proposal within a month, after holding its first discussion on the matter in a committee meeting yesterday.
In a joint press conference Thursday, more than 10 social-welfare organizations appealed to the government to take seriously the special demand for caregivers presented by the roughly 286,000 families that have disabled or elderly members.
The organizations stressed the difficulties they face recruiting appropriately qualified caregivers.
The appeal came after presidential adviser Liu Hsia's (
Wang Jung-chang (
One of the biggest hardships is that local caregivers charge almost three times as much as foreign caregivers and refuse to work for more than eight hours a day.
Currently, a foreign caregiver's average monthly salary is less than NT$ 20,000, while local caregiver's monthly salary is usually higher than NT$ 45,000.
Under the draft proposal, these non-commercial organizations would be prohibited from charging brokerage fees to foreign workers. Whether to charge a fee to Taiwanese employers -- and how much to charge them -- is still under discussion.
Wu Yu-chin (
"It's understandable for foreign workers not to concentrate on their jobs, when most of their salaries are taken by the brokerage agencies," Wu said.
Currently, commercial brokerage agencies charge between NT$ 90,000 and NT$200,000 for each person who wishes to come to Taiwan to work.
Kuo Fong-yu (
The draft proposal states that non-commercial organizations that have been established for more than five years and have more than NT$100 million in capital are entitled to apply to act as brokers.
However, some of the council's committee members argued that the capital requirement is not appropriate and that the bar has been set too high.
Kuo said that the proposal would be implemented after his department worked out the issues of charging employers and which organizations would qualify.
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