The Ministry of Labor on Wednesday last week officially opened a service center dedicated to the retention of skilled migrant workers, providing a one-stop service that enables the speedy processing of administrative paperwork for employers, employees and labor brokers.
The center in Hsinchu County — which together with neighboring Taoyuan has the largest number of migrant workers — also provides in-person workplace consultations, as well as one-on-one counter and telephone services, Minister of Labor Hsu Ming-chun (許銘春) said.
The center would assign one staff member to each employer who has hired a certain number of experienced migrant workers and wishes to apply to extend their employment or upgrade their status, to better track their progress, Hsu said.
Photo: CNA
The establishment of the Long-term Retention of Migrant Workers Service Center supports the government’s policy of retaining migrant workers employed in the manufacturing, construction, fisheries, long-term care and agricultural sectors where there is a shortage of labor, the ministry said.
The ministry in April last year introduced a pathway to permanent residency in Taiwan for migrant workers who are eligible for reclassification as “intermediate skilled workers,” if they have been employed in a designated field for six years or more and meet certain wage qualifications.
For migrant workers in the manufacturing, construction, agriculture and fishing industries, the minimum wage for application eligibility is NT$33,000 per month, the ministry said.
Institutional care workers are required to earn an income of at least NT$29,000 per month, while live-in care workers must have minimum monthly pay of NT$24,000, it said.
Upon approval of their reclassification, which can be renewed every three years without limit, migrant workers are eligible to apply for permanent residency after having worked for five years at that level in accordance with the provisions of the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法), it added.
As of the end of last month the long-term retention program had continued the employment or upgraded the status of 21,351 migrant workers — 8,447 in the manufacturing sector and 12,894 in the long-term care sector — which was higher than expected, Hsu said.
The ministry is seeking to upgrade a minimum of 20,000 intermediate skilled migrant workers each year, she said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS