Taiwan's growing talent drain :facebook:

Might help if they increased salaries in Taiwan

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As usual, a great detailed read from Commonwealth. Their interviewees are however drawn almost entirely from a pool of NTU students, with a handful of others–hardly representative of the student/labour situation in Taiwan. What it suggests though is a generation desperate to get out of here–or more precisely, trying to find alternatives to Taiwan’s grim labour market.

Guy

Seriously? I feel like most of their stuff is crap.

Taiwan is a democratic capitalist country at the cross roads of Asias three largest economies. It’s easy to start a business, taxes are low, the transport networks are great, and cost of living is cheap.

If you can’t thrive in this environment, it says more about you than anything else.

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You must be one of those Taiwanese who feel the need to defend against any negative portrayal of Taiwan.

Your comment, despite being false, has nothing to do with the premise of the article that a lot of young Taiwanese do not see a future in working in Taiwan. It’s easy to see why. The salaries are low here, the food contaminated , the bosses are generally horrible, working conditions for most people are bad, the housing is expensive, and the opportunities to make a decent salary are few.

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Well, I don’t know what your frame of reference is for excellence in journalism.

But I will say that my frame is this: the fast-frame and at times unethical nonsense that repeats in a dizzying loop on Taiwan’s TV news; the often factually challenged pieces that appear in Taiwan’s English-language print media (perhaps the Chinese language newspapers are paragons of precision–this I will leave for you to decide); and the all too frequent view-from-Beijing parroted in the news wire pieces on Taiwan that appear from Reuters and their ilk (though in some cases these guys are getting a bit better).

Compared to the insultingly shallow, often unfactual, and view-from-afar perspectives in these outlets, the in-depth pieces fron Commonwealth are a breath of fresh air. :2cents:

Guy

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While better than most publications this article doesn’t give insight into the blue collar world nor into the large mass of ron elite university students out there.

The numbers working abroad doesn’t really seem to be that big though to be honest.

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Ok, my math is not great, so correct me if I am wrong, but according to the figures they supplied, the number of students studying overseas has risen by about 6% since 2008?

That’s a rise of less than 1% per year in that time

Not sure if that’s a ‘Stop the Press’ type situation

Interestingly, the number of students choosing America has slumped by about 10% since 2008

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Most of the stats in the article do not include China, HK and Macau. You would get a better picture if those were included since that is where many are heading, at least as a stepping stone to other countries.

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So then I guess we don’t really know…

Studying abroad ain’t cheap - so that’s gonna act as a natural handbrake on the numbers doing it

According to the figures provided, the number of students taking out loans to study is only 700 out of nearly 40 000 - or less than 2%

Basically, unless Daddy’s rich, it’s an unattainable dream for most Taiwanese - and always will be

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The stumbling-block would be a lot of byzantine laws that, if someone takes a dislike to what you’re doing, can be used to trip you up. However, that probably doesn’t apply to the average small business.

There was an excellent piece in Newslens https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1406124969456988&id=481065478629613

A lot of Taiwan’s problems that people are taught by parents to be compliant from a young age and never say no to boss and customers. This is the reason for the bad working conditions and terrible pay in Taiwan.

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Along with the class blinders and the omission of data from HK/Macau/PRC proper (as noted by perceptive forumosans), we also don’t seem to know from the Commonwealth piece linked above how long the students are staying abroad. I was reminded of this point by an interesting piece by James McCrostie in the Japan Times which points out that rising numbers of Japanese students studying internationally have been inflated by short stays abroad, often around one month:

I wonder if something similar might be happening in Taiwan.

Guy

It’s always been popular to liu xue especially for women, that can mean 3 months or 1 year commonly. Almost all of them come back to Taiwan.

Also the article makes a big deal of preferred destination being US and Canada but most actually go to other countries for study.

In my home country withich smaller population we have massive movements in and out of the country for work and study depending on the economy.

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So where are they going? I came back lol. Certainly not Europe, they’re even more broke where a electronic store still needs to sell they sell color TV. Korea unless you’re marry into someone in the Samsung and LG Family. Living expenses are even more expensive there along with Japan. HK? Good luck living in a dog cage, I mean apartment. Everywhere I look, I feel like every country say they have a brain drain problem. I think there’s just no jobs or future for young people in general unless you grab yourself by the boot and get creative instead of entering the workforce in a entry level job. But that’s harder said then done.

Europe overall is doing pretty good right now, employment is up in most EU countries, wages and benefits are great in many European countries. US employment is also very strong.

Salaries in Taiwan are just too low that’s the real problem for young people.
It’s a combination of lack of foreign investment and ntd being kept down over the long term.

I wonder if some of them are just dropping off the radar? I’ve heard of any number of professionals who decide to just say “fuck it” and go off to raise pumpkins or open a corner store or breed sheep (not in the Welsh sense, of course). Just a couple of weeks ago someone was telling me about a bunch of ex-HTC engineers who’d gone off to grow rice or something in the middle of nowhere (ie., Hualian). The guy who owns farmland opposite mine was an IT contractor. More and more people seem to be getting tired of playing The Game.

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Well, considering the sacrifices and investment both parents and kids have to do to even get accepted into NTU, let alone graduate from there, to be told afterwards not to be greedy and accept a 22k salary, in spite of the fact that the cost of living requires over 30K at least… well, I understand their disillusionment.

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China, of course.

TBH if I was still in finance, I would definitely be in HK also. Say what you will about the tiny cages, but I’m happier with that than earn the local salary.

No disputing Taiwan is a nicer place to live though.

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I have found that the people that do go to china are much older and skilled vs young people. If you’re a young person with entry level job skills sets you really think China is going to give to a better salary, cheaper and better standard of living? They have the same exact same problem with their young people. In fact some of their young people are coming here.