Ah, capitalism. My friend from another thread will chime in soon, I am sure. Speak something about capitalism this and socialism that. Then rant about it all being Obama’s fault, even though this is about Taiwan.
1 Like
I found the opposite. The go there because many companies give them opportunities for growth, plus they pay much better. And the standard of living in my admittedly limited experience was in many ways higher than her in Taiwan.
Older professionals that I met were far more mobile.
With use of terms like “rivals,” “youngsters,” and “anti-Beijing,” that AFP piece linked above via the Japan Times sounds like it was written by a dinosaur–or perhaps by some software that can machine produce “news” articles like that by randomly reordering such terms. Boring.
Guy
Low wages drive most of this. I see this in Australia and New Zealand. Many young (under 30) Taiwanese with college degrees some working decent jobs, but most doing farm work or other labor intensive jobs, all because of the low salary in Taiwan. I work with students who try stay in Australia as long as possible, and it seems the number that return home is fewer than before.
Maybe you just suddenly realised that they are Taiwanese. The stats show otherwise:
https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/temp-entrants-newzealand-dec13.pdf
https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/temp-entrants-newzealand-dec14.pdf
https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/temp-entrants-newzealand-dec31.pdf
https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/temp-entrants-aus-31-dec-2016.pdf
The number of working holiday makers from Taiwan is in a downward trend and has dropped by a whopping 40% (from ~28,000 to ~17,000) since 2013, I’m thinking due to the weak performance of AUD. The overall number of temporary entrants is down as well, though the number of student visa holders has increased quite a bit.
1 Like
Seems to be a popular topic these days. This article is a bit more detailed than the AFP piece.
Interesting.
I would love to know the reason for that.
One is probably that there are less young people in that age group?
Poor feedback from previous participants ?
Problems getting money together to go?
Better economy or less competition in Taiwan for recent jobseekers?
Impact of 2 year mandatory farm work rule?
By the way…I did this almost 20 years ago best year of my life :).
I’ve seen versions of this article doing the rounds and it sounds like bullshit to be honest.
GIVE ME THE NUMBERS.
Anybody who has been in Taiwan for a longtime will know there have been bigger wages of emigration previously.
There were waves of people going to the America’s and south Africa etc. Then there was a massive wave of ambitious workers in the 2000s to China. All my Taiwanese colleagues in China moved over there in the 2000s. The only one who tried it in 2010s has already come back to Taiwan. The 2000s generation are still there as they have good positions.
If anything I feel Taiwanese emigrate less now but I’d like to see the real stats!
Also Taiwanese are FAR less mobile than Europeans and countries like the Philippines .
Most mobile Taiwanese seem to be criminals, those guys and gals really get Around lol.
1 Like
I think it’s mostly due to AUD’s position. Compares to 2013-2014 AUD has dropped by 30%, that’s quite a lot. Some probably realised that it’s no longer that easy to save money by working at an Australian farm.
It’s not just Taiwan. If you check the stats for Korea the number has gone down a lot as well.
1 Like
Maybe too expensive now and too many shitty and hard jobs and people trying to exploit them.
Demographics look like they could be a factor as well.
Look at the massive drop coming through!
Never heard for someone to emigrate from Taiwan, from my wife circle (Hsinchu IT). Yea some folks are send to China, some went there temporarily, but all of em do not really wanna go to China in first place, even many can actually earn more there.
I moved with my wife to Germany and it seems no one gives a damn about her professional experience in IT, electronics. Over 100 CV sent and only offer she really got is entry level office job for minimal wage like 1200 euros after tax/ around 40k for no name company. In whole year. Need to say her German is on basic level. She was paid like 50k twd in taiwan.
Is not like someone is waiting for you with flowers in hand. Keep in mind she got resident card through me .Do not really see how mass of Taiwanese could ever move to EU. Except for good engineers no company will ever sponsor them visa. Neither sure is worth for Taiwanese to move over here.
Probably best bet for young fresh Taiwanese is to move to Vietnam and work for taiwanese company. Heard on more occasions fresh graduates can start with 40k twd. And Vietnam is dirt cheap.
3-4 years isn’t really enough for a demographic shift. 10 then probably.
It’s official, though solid numbers are hard to come by. Do problems increase or deteriorate when they get worse? What is the proper English?
Has worsened.
Except NO NUMBERS have been supplied to back up this assertion.
So this article could be complete bullshit.
What’s the latest emigration figures?
Are they that hard to supply to back up the point of the whole article?!?
The definition of brain drain is also absolutely ridiculous.
Another article on this topic from Amcham
This time attempted to put some numbers but all they have is that the age group seemed to be younger overall.
That doesn’t mean the situation has been getting worse unless we see the nominal numbers and how long they stay there (although I see the headline says long running brain drain which is correct).
Its perfectly normal for people to emigrate to a larger neighbouring country with more business and educational ooportunities, happens all over the world especially if they share the same language.
I’m a bit late, just recently noticed this. I really do think there’s a lot of local talent in Taiwan, the business model just doesn’t make sense. Most internationally successful businessmen either groom their (heir) successor, or don’t get family involved at all and let them make their own way in life. However, I’m surprised every week here by another successful businessman that feeds their adult children money without anything in return, like work or even education. That’s one way to make sure you’re the last person to own your business.
Usually I find these people in person but recently there was a news article about someone that gets paid NT$200,000 every month by his father, without having to work. Really, you’re not setting up anyone for success like this and most businesses don’t run themselves. So, do the math and you can expect everything you’ve worked for to disappear when you’re gone.
2 Likes
I do not have statistics to back up my opinion…but over the last 25 years being associated with Taiwan I have met countless Taiwanese and their children who have or are still working abroad. They also invested a lot of money abroad. Of course, since Taiwan is a small market not all of these people could have the same success if stayed in Taiwan. However, I believe their leaving Taiwan has made a major impact.
Them taking all their money overseas and spending it on fancy homes over there and leaving their shitty concrete boxes along with the pollution from their factories here definitely made an impact. Yes.