#goals
Does minimum wages help improve the economy? If companies have more orders to fill and they canât find enough good people, the wages will go up. I have custom designed electronic goods made in Taiwan and China for American and European clients. In Taiwan, the quality is easier to manage but many times, I never get to that point of placing the order in Taiwan due to the response time being much slower than China.
Iâm sure Iâm not alone with this experience. There are many missed opportunities by factories here because they start with âNoâ and try to get to âYesâ. That worked many years ago but not being able to adapt and move fast is what is killing Taiwan now. They have to fight for their markets instead of make it hard to do biz. Iâve got a project now that Iâve been trying to get a quote for over a monthâŚSorry for my rant.
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Raising min wage as a go to solution often fails as it effects small business owners also and drives the cost of living up. We all saw that happen 2 years ago in TW when food increased like 20-30% when the govt raised min wage. However no one else in the private sector such as office workers, other laborers above min wage saw a wage increase. The raise in min wage would only put a few scratches into the huge profits of these mega corps in Taiwan, wouldnât even dent it but it would adversely effect the rest of the country. Somehow profts/productivity and wages need to be tied together again like they were in the past instead of being funnelled into the pockets of the owners alone. By owners Iâm not talking about small businesses (Under 50 million USD)
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I wish they would let the imported SEA workers choose their companies/freely switch between jobs. then we would really see salaries -and conditions- improving, as the mafia that extorts the indentured slavery wages would lose their teeth.
Seriously, until Taiwan patches this human right failure -which is human traffic plain and simple- there is no way the economy will improve, for starters. It may not dawn on them how improving the conditions for foreigners will mean benefits for all.
But then as said, these disgusting stoopid laobans with their mansions in Shanghai and NY think little of Taiwan labor, let alone foreign.
Karma is catching up.
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I work with some of these business owners, and their attitude sickens me sometimes.
One woman owns a factory here and in China, and complained to me that the workers get too uppity sometimes and quit suddenly. You do a little digging and find out there is a revolving door toxic work environment at her company along with low salary. She sees nothing wrong with paying rock bottom salaries to people but then proceeds to tell me how much money she drops on vacationsďźhigh end classy resort vacations, and restaurants on a weekly basis. She could drop $20k on a fancy dinner with a few friends without batting an eyelash but complains that the workers are too soft
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And those are way too willing to hire âillegalâ workers, absconded or rather the runaways⌠so they can skip all legal constraints.
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Same situation - buyers in India push for low price - then China factory tried to meet the price for bulk orders then factory push the staff to work overtime till Sunday. Workers exit because of low salary with no holiday except on public holiday, adding up too much overtime.
These 2 types of manufacturers make the workers suffer more and these corporate increase their product pricing which ordinary people also suffers.
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Not only in Taiwan but the entire work place around the globe.
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The owner of the first buxiban I worked at used to complain that she couldnât keep her teachers for more than a year or two. She seemed to genuinely not get the link to her upper pay limit of 600NT an hour.
There needs to be a balance. Disadvantages of high wages are obvious so I wonât go into that but low wages are not necessarily good for the economy either. Most advanced economies around the world rely on domestic consumption and low wages have serious negative affects on that. If people have more money they will spend more which means more sales and higher efficiency due to economics of scale.
A small economy like Taiwan can depend more on trade and exports but there are limits to how rich you can get with that and the government has zero control over global economy, so a recession in the US or China (both of which are closer that you might imagine) will have higher impact on the local economy than they should.
Stop importing slaves from SE Asian countries and local wages will increase.
Exactly. Better wages will improve relationships not only with neighboring countries but also inside with local workers, not to mention that if they could throw in more leisure time, that would activate the domestic market until their earnings spill over.
Hell would freeze over before more vacation days are given.
The man does not see the correlation of more vacation days = more spending = better for economy. They see it as more vacation days = less productivity = lower sales.
Every time the Government publishes the data for February and begs forgiveness for les sales/GDP/whatever BECAUSE there were vacation days⌠it makes my blood boil. For a way too large percentage of people, those 3 to 4 days of the lunar new year are the only time off they have all year long. Unbelievable.
EDIT:
And regarding wages, this piece is golden:
On wages, business leaders urge respect for market mechanism
2018/05/14 20:02:16
Taipei, May 14 (CNA) The leaders of two major Taiwanese business associations urged the government to respect the market mechanism and the management autonomy of companies as it tries to promote wage growth.
âI believe (wages) will rise naturally if the government focuses more on economic stimulus plans and tries harder to devise good (economic) policies,â said General Chamber of Commerce Chairman Lai Cheng-yi (čł´ćŁé°) on Monday.
He was responding to strategies proposed by the Cabinet earlier in the day to fix the countryâs low-wage problem.
The strategies, aimed at increasing the wages of low-paid workers, included hiking the minimum pay for government employees to NT$30,000 (US$1,000) a month, encouraging or pressing private firms to follow suit, and raising the hourly minimum wage from NT$140 to NT$150.
At a press conference Monday, Vice Premier Shih Jun-ji (ć˝äżĺ) described raising the hourly wage rate as a âquick and efficient short-term stepâ to resolve the low-wage problem.
Lai said, however, that âthis isnât a case of the government simply throwing out numbers and then [wages] will move higher. I donât think this can work.â
Also, wage levels in the services sector are not as low as the government thinks they are, he said, arguing that the private sector is aware that it cannot hire people with low-wage offers.
âThe market mechanism will regulate the wage structure. Thereâs no need for the government to worry too much,â he said.
Echoing Lai, Taipei-based Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce Chairman Lin Por-fong (ć䟯čą) said improving the investment environment is what the government should set as its top priority.
âWhen the economic climate is promising, the rest will automatically take a turn for the better,â Lin contended.
He urged the government to allow enterprises to run their own companies freely.
âEvery company has its own management approach,â he said. âIf the government interferes in this and that and demands a bunch of things it itself cannot achieve, it will only intensify conflict between management and labor.â
In that scenario, some companies may end up having to reduce the number of employees they have or even close down, let alone raise wages, Lin warned.
Both Lai and Lin voiced support for the government to take the initiative to raise the wages of low-paid contract workers in the public sector, but they stressed that striving for economic growth is the fundamental solution.
Wages in Taiwan have remained relatively stagnant when inflation is factored in after being driven down during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Average real monthly earnings, which include irregular income such as overtime and bonuses and are adjusted for inflation, rose to an all-time first-quarter high of NT$59,852, but that was still only 2.4 percent higher than the real monthly earnings of NT$58,447 in the first quarter of 2000.
Real monthly salaries hit NT$38,132 in the first quarter, lower than in the same quarter in the years from 2001 to 2007, before the financial crisis hit.
If market rules, then letâs take all the protectionism measures and tax havens they have. Letâs see how that goes.
Higher wages will result in less jobs.
Unfortunately, in Taiwan, this is inevitable. Boss man doesnât want to take a huge pay cut, so they increase wages and hire less hands on deck. Thereâs no win win scenario for employees.
seen it too. i knew of a boss that was an absolute tight fisted bastard. after some people quit he just gave the existing staff more work so he wouldnât have to hire new again. while every month he was only selling like 15% of what he was producing so thats a whole bunch of money being pissed away of his own accord.
This reminds me of the Jack Ma quote: âif you havenât made it by 35, you only have yourself to blame.â
Well guess what, Jack? If the workers rise up and seize your billions in a proletariat revolution, you have only yourself to blame!
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No kidding eh.
Of course It didnât help that alibaba was a copy of eBay and Amazon that already existed.
And China blocks foreign companies from competing fairly with their local industries so of course they became rich
Uber came up with ride sharing, China copies, uber gets forced out⌠repeat repeat repeat
Itâs also rich that he said
Jack Ma applied for 30 different jobs and got rejected by all. âI went for a job with the police; they said, 'youâre no goodâŚ
Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted. I was the only guyâŚâ. In addition he applied 10 times for Harvard Business School (HBS) and got rejected.
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If nothing else, at least he was persistant.
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