31% of Taiwanese earn less than NT$30,000; 10% earn over NT$61,000 per month

I kinda agree. They closed ALL the parks in Hsinchu “for repair and redevelopment”. Thing was, parks were quite good and I can’t say they were in need of repairs.

Yeah there more turds out there but you’ll find they were formerly rich or still get paid a hell of a lot better.

When I did the comparison on indexmundi Taiwan clustered fairly close with many countries I think the 2001 drop did a lot of damage as many companies moved their a manufacturing to China that year .

However the local economic funk is not captured well in the GDP Dara which leaves me to suspect

  1. Its partially related to property speculation , property speculation and development adds to GDP

  2. It is capturing exports produced in China

  3. A bigger share of the economy has been going to business owners all the time.

The GDP doesn’t quite show investment trends of course.

In the end it’s still not very clear why wages refuse to grow beyond cultural choices (lack of unions ) and lack of foreign investment perhaps.

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This.

Starting businesses is not the panacea to Taiwanese problems and the constant refrain of “if you don’t like it, start a business” is annoying. Not everyone is suitable to start a business. Entrepreneurship is good for the economy, but that doesn’t mean that workers shouldn’t be treated properly or earn a living wage.

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Reporting to labour standards isn’t a path of action here. Reading on PTT people who did this and made their life hell. An official turns up at the company and the boss says something along the lines of “oopsy Daisy , we will try to get better”. The worker is then isolated until they are forced to leave

This is completely false!!!

Taiwan household disposable income raised up from 520k to 850k in last 20 years. And GDP from 300 to 500 billions.

Can say income grows slower comparing to many countries. Again, is a lot about methodologyo

how about after they have quit though? i mean i don’t expect the bosses to change anything but i think they should be given as much hassle as possible instead of treating people like dirt and then getting off scott free like they currently do.

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Household disposable income went from 860k to almost 1000k since 1997, but the GDP from 300ish to almost 600.

You can check the figures here:
http://win.dgbas.gov.tw/fies/a11.asp?year=105

Ideally. But the government don’t do things

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Household? What is a household?
Where does the data come from? Don’t be fooled by statistics.

A household consists of one or more people who live in the same dwelling and also share meals or living accommodation, and may consist of a single family or some other grouping of people.[1] A single dwelling will be considered to contain multiple households if either meals or living space are not shared. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is important to the fields of economics and inheritance.

From official government sites? Every country has them.

Am not saying everything is fine with taiwanese economy, but i do not buy this socialist logic. Is asia, is taiwan, people expect to get products, service cheap. Is cultural, parents already forcing em to study long from early age. They raising em up with low hourly productivity state of mind. In taiwan working hard = working long, over hours. Is not really about hourly output.

Yea i agree, a lot of people are under paid, but this is how is here. Do not forget there is enourmous pressure from china. Low skilled labours can be replaced with chinese any time basically.

An another side, you have world competitive companies like tsmc, with significant growth over years. Their chairman, Morris Chang saying cost of engineers are not a problem, but more talent of em. Saying people getting degree without much passion for subject. But yea, this guy is more american, than taiwanese.

Read an article they looking for like 2k new tehnicians. Going around universities, looking for engineers. Never heard of any company in europe ever looking for so much high paid people at once. Friend told me her starting yearly income from TSMC was over 1mio twd, straight out of university.

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You see, the more people live together the higher the household income! Figures, statistics can be manipulated.

That’s why it’s average household income, and there’s something called an average household size.

Hsinchu’s biggest make work projects are always about water – engineers here must be the most experienced in the world when it comes to repairing drainage and water mains.

And then try to get a job after that when you try to get a reference after reporting them to the labour board. A previous forumosian no longer on this board had a problem many years ago with her school, made an inquiry to the labour board who turned around and ratted her out to the boss.

On another topic,another issue I have is the thinly veiled disgust the uber rich here have for what they consider lower class, such as the south east Asian helpers and even servers at restaurants , Tea shops, McDonald’s. Demanding, rude, ready to kick up a stink when they don’t get their way immediately. And all this abuse for the measly pay they get.

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That’s the salary minimum for foreigners to get sponsored for work visas? 55k?

Maybe taiwan should think about a base min salary? I think even in Italy the min wage just over 1100 euros full time. 30k or less is livable but pretty miserable. You’re not spending on anything besides basic needs. Doesn’t sound good if 1/3 of the population basically have no spending power. And banks aren’t as loose about extending a line of credit to people, I think you have to have a considerable amount saved up and prove a high enough steady income to even get a credit card.

What is this ‘socialist logic’ you are railing against exactly?

TSMC case study is very interesting. IMHO its not a typical company for Taiwan .

They’ve built such scale that they are very hard to beat now, only Samsung can match them for capital investment and expertise it seems.

They need to invest 20 billion USD in their migration to 3nm technology , the first plant for 3nm will be built in Kaohsiung. It is truly cutting edge.

But TSMC while benefiting Taiwan enormously is also a parasite on Taiwan. It’s new plant will use a city’s amount of energy and vast amounts of water. This is not a clean industry. It is not really suitable for locating on a small island with no resources. But this is the reality of the situation I guess i.e. there aren’t many other billion dollar investments in high tech to choose from.

After 3nm chips we are moving into the quantum world, lets hope
companies in Taiwan can make that leap too.

The other vastly profitable company is Largan, which completely dominates lens for mobile phones. They have a massive and secretive manufacturing operation in Taichung.

I believe Taichung could become Taiwan’s richest city over time.

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Maybe that’s the type of input from Taiwanese to the economy- diesel in the Civic.

TSMC and companies like it are also the reason why TWD is always kept down, if the government can get away with it that is.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2017/04/14/2003668656

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Italy doesn’t have a minimum wage.