The Tourism Administration today said it plans to improve protections for foreign interns in the hospitality industry, which is facing serious labor shortages.
Regulations are currently inadequate to ensure that interns are given fair compensation and working hours, agency Director-General Chen Yu-hsiu (陳玉秀) told reporters after a meeting at the Legislative Yuan.
The agency discussed the matter with the Ministry of Labor last month and hopes to implement a comprehensive mechanism to ensure that foreign interns have sufficient stipends, insurance and time off, Chen said.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
The plan is still under review, she added.
Foreign interns are an important source of labor for the hospitality sector, she said, adding that she hopes they would stay in Taiwan to work after their studies.
Taiwan’s hospitality industry currently has 10,000 job openings, 6,000 of which are for housekeeping and cleaning.
Foreign students may obtain internships in the hospitality industry, provided that their working hours do not exceed half of their total hours of study.
They may not receive a salary, but may be compensated via stipends and free or discounted accommodation, as decided by their school and employer.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS