Taiwan to relax rules on hiring white-collar foreign workers

THE TAIWAN government is working towards relaxing regulations on hiring white-collar foreign workers in Taiwan, said Labour Minister Chen Hsiung-wen on November 26.

Current requirements on minimum salary and at least two years’ working experience overseas will be scrapped. The new regulations will be finalised at the earliest by the end of this year. The new regulations will predominantly operate on a points system and will also allow small- and medium-businesses to hire white-collar foreign nationals.

Current requirements specify that white-collar foreign workers must have at least two years’ working experience overseas and receive a minimum monthly salary of 47,000 New Taiwan dollars (Bt51,000) and the enterprise hiring them must have a minimum paid-in capital. However, the aforementioned requirements may be scrapped or adjusted accordingly, said Chen.

Taiwan does allow white-collar foreign professionals, however strict foreign worker restrictions have resulted in more local talent leaving Taiwan than foreign talent coming in, said Chen. 

There are at most around 20,000 foreign nationals working in the nation every year, compared to the 2 million Taiwanese managerial-level workers who are based in mainland China and overseas. 

The Ministry of Labour and other related government ministries, agencies and departments will work toward relaxing regulations to attract more foreign talent to Taiwan, said Chen. 

For instance, the lifting of restrictions on the paid-in-capital of enterprises hiring foreign professionals should not be decided by the Labour Ministry alone; further discussion among government agencies will be required.

Chen explained that the government had originally put those restrictions in place to protect local workers, as the ministry did not want the hiring of white-collar foreign workers to impact on the wages of local workers. 

The average monthly salary for a local worker is approximately NT$38,000, while the minimum salary threshold for foreign professionals is nearly NT$10,000 more. Chen explained that foreign workers already find local wages to be too low and rarely apply for the same jobs as Taiwanese nationals. The current minimum salary threshold restriction is not necessary and therefore has little meaning in practice, said Chen. 

The Ministry of Labour’s Workforce Development Agency director-general Liu Chug-Chun explained that the new regulations for recruiting white-collar foreign talent would operate according to a points system.