Academics cautioned against moving ahead with a government proposal to open up the hospitality industry to migrant workers to tackle a labor shortage, instead urging politicians to solve the root causes of the problem and be aware of the potential threat to local workers’ livelihoods.
In an interview with the Central News Agency, Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said that Taiwan might have to open up the hospitality industry to migrant workers by the end of the year because of a shortage of labor.
In response, Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, on Wednesday said that the government should think twice before going ahead with the proposal.
Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung Labor Affairs Bureau
To solve the labor shortage in the hospitality sector, hotel owners should increase wages, not recruit foreign workers, Hsin said.
Hsin said that in the past, opening up the industrial or social welfare sectors was logical because manufacturers feared factories moving overseas and having to compete with global rivals, but the situation is different for the hospitality sector.
The salaries hotel workers earn tend to be lower than in other industries, so even if owners raise wages, people still might choose not to work in hotels, Hsin said.
Hsin urged the government to investigate the root causes of why the hospitality sector is understaffed because of the potential impact of those working in hotels deciding to quit their jobs.
Meanwhile, Lee Chien-hung (李健鴻), a professor at Chinese Culture University’s Department of Labor and Human Resources, said that about 60 percent of Taiwanese workers are employed in the service sector, of which the hospitality industry forms a significant part.
If those jobs are open to foreign workers, Lee said, local hotel employees could be affected or even replaced.
If the government decides to open up the sector, the move needs to be backed up by data that supports it, as it was in the past for the industrial, agriculture and construction sectors, Lee added.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS