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

Chatting with the wife about one of her friends in Taipei. her salary is stuck at 30k level (biz uni grad).
The last place she worked asked her to get an expensive laptop (they wouldn’t pay for it) and then they fired her after three months or so.

The husband retired from the army early, got a small pension and does some kind of IT programming work . He was also stuck around 30k, he finally passed the govt exams and got a job at a public admin center so has 'made it`. He gets paid about the same and also has to do overtime even working weekends sometimes. But job is guaranteed until retirement and then gets another pension

Maybe it has something to do with paying the lowest price possible for what you buy on Amazon. Ring a bell?

Some people spend 1000s on a phone, some spend dollars on a gadget. Nothing new under the sun.

No, I’m struggling why cheap electronics on Amazon mean that Taiwanese bosses should mistreat and under pay workers. Also struggling why that proves that Taiwanese companies can’t be profitable while pay a living wage.

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No clue why paying $20 for an internet camera from Asia that used to cost $200 contributes to the race to the bottom for all workers?

Maybe that’s the real problem.

How do you explain Apple and their manufacturers sitting on the largest pile of cash in history for an electronics company while paying crap wages? In fact there was a news article about Foxconn paying fresh grads 22k.

People pay a premium for Apple products, Apple hoards the cash profits, Foxxconn hoards the cash profits, Pegatron, Renbao and on and on… In fact all these companies engaged in premium products are also sitting on record cash piles.

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And most corporations pay obscene amounts to CEO, thousands of times what they pay their workers. So much for trickle…

The piles of cash sitting abroad in tax havens are the biggest problem. That is a real drain on teh economy, a cancer that does not let all society players take part in the economy. Like stagnant water, that cash becomes putrid, infected with other illegalities. Every tiem we read that TSMC or whatever made profit, does that translate to any benefit to the rest of society if the money is not even here?

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Exactly, and these CEOs often lose the company money, return negative profits but get golden parachutes, then their old boys network friends offer them CEO or board positions at another company. Sometimes they just steal, commit fraud and identity theft on the American people and their customers like John Stumpf CEO of Wells Fargo who also happened to have a board advisory position on the US Federal Reserve…(cough)

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Yep, even the shenzhen company who I presume would be making this product is paying it’s white collar staff more than Taiwanese. Companies in shenzhen have access to a complete supply chain and human resources pool, they can work cheaply and quickly. Many are investing in marketing and selling directly on Amazon through FBA. They keep prices low by cutting out the traditional OEM/distribution model.

Going back to Apple. The majority of suppliers are from the US and Japan, with a fair number from Germany and Europe. Pretty safe to say these companies stay profitable without treating their staff like slaves.

I have been in manufacturing and design, RND for over a decade. A lot of the cost of driving on these electronics has to do with new manufacturing techniques especially newer injection molding techniques and machines, increased automation of these. Also the idea of mass production runs and how certain materials PC plastics are cheaper now than 30 years ago. Far stretch to blame this as the reason for lower wages world wide, the destruction of the middle class while corporate profits skyrocket to record heights sitting on record cash while refusing to even increase wages 2-3% on par with inflation every other year, everything points to pure greed.

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It translates to a nice windfall to their employees and later the local German car dealerships.

Most TSMC shareholders are foreign funds so most of the dividend flow out again. 3% a year. Pollution stays here.

Company I work for has billions of cash sitting in overseas accounts. Labour only counts for 15 per cent of cost or something like that. Globalisation.

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Seems countries with reliance on mass manufacturing are facing the same issue, automation reducing manufacturing jobs.

Would like to see Vietnam situation probably not factor too much due to lower wages.

Countries with economies that mix manufacturing and design and services should flourish. Why Taiwan isn’t flourishing…that’s the question.

no it isn’t its just the only app in town so of course everyone is going to use it and it will need more features.

thats like saying line would be innovative if facebook and instagram were banned in taiwan, line adopted those apps features and everyone used line to post their daily food photos and whatnot.

I like Wechat. The payment features are pretty innovative, way ahead of Apple pay. You are right it’s a closed market, but Wechat and other Chinese tech companies are pretty innovative now. Didnt use to be that way

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if its so innovative why isn’t it the most used chatting app outside of china? its not even used outside of china, other than by chinese or people who need to interact with chinese people(because everything else is blocked so theres no other way to contact them).

everything about it is suited to china. sure, payment features can work if everyone in the country is using the app and every store or shop owner too. that makes things a little easier don’t you think?

I don’t think it’s pushed much outside. The payment stuff and other apps in the ecosystem are great. Just because people out of China don’t use it, doesn’t mean it’s not innovative. It’s not 2010, China does a lot of cool stuff now . Why do u hate Wechat so much ?

They are promoting it a lot in SE Asia I guess.
That and Alipay micropayments.
Wechat definitely has a lot more functionality than any messaging app I know.

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i don’t hate it. it just is what it is. a bog standard messaging app which has a lot of features due to being the only game in town. why should i like it? as far as messaging apps go it isn’t any slicker than line or facebook messenger. and the fact that nobody other than chinese uses it proves my point doesn’t it? it has nothing to offer people who live in a country that hasn’t blocked 95% of apps. if its so innovative why are people not using it?

taiwan is the perfect example. they did push it here actually, a while ago. quite a few Taiwanese have it. but line is by far preferred. even tho wechat has more features, people still prefer line. those features are not needed by people here as they can still use facebook, instagram ect. i’m sorry but without the protectionism its just another bog standard messaging app.