Hi everyone~ Hope to get some advice from foreigners working in Taiwan (Taichung) currently.
I am a master’s degree holder (engineering field, fresh grad) with 2 years working experience in my home country, Malaysia. I was verbally confirmed for a job offer as Facility Maintenance Engineer in a IC packaging company located in Taichung. I am glad to find this opportunity as I had planned to shift into semiconductor industry, previously I was a Sales Exec in mining company 
(I need a job immediately too, had 6 months break after completing my master’s degree)
I wish to know am I getting a proper offer…? The HR had offered me 44k NTD monthly salary which I believe it is below the required minimum salary for work permit application 
this job is consider as a 1 ~ 1.5 year training in Taichung, and I will relocate back to my home country for new factory setup after that… Anyhow, 44k doesn’t seem like a good deal right? The HR mentioned about my benefits of getting 3 round trips for home visit annually, and hostel is provided (but it doesn’t seem fancy from what I found in Google, possibly I have to rent a studio house nearby with 8 ~ 9k NT per month…). And the HR had mentioned about "de"crement in salary after return to my home country, but still not too low compare to my peers. I understood this company is not a tycoon like TSMC but is this amount competent to average foreigner salary in Taiwan? Plus I have to sign a 3 year bond!
What is this bond?
You commit to three years?
You have two pay an amount (how much?) upfront and if you leave you lose that amount?
This sounds like a bad deal, they are just trying to get you (legally) trapped into a cheap labor situation. Just thank them for their time and say you need to think about it, or come back with a number 3x as high. 
But even if they bargain up to something reasonable, definitely don’t sign any long-term contract, this is just a stepping stone to get to somewhere better, you’ll want to move on as soon as possible.
44k is the fixed salary they give to master students. I think your company isn’t aware about the laws regarding hiring foreigners and how much they need to pay you minimum. You can tell them about the labor law and how much they should pay you minimum and maybe they will be okay with it.
But I can tell u one thing that they want to go cheap so what they give u now won’t increase. Taiwan companies are known for not increasing salary or promotion.
I would suggest u explore more options
If you have time, go fish. Plenty other fishes out there.
Is your Points System (Scoring Criteria) for Foreign and Overseas
Chinese Students to Work in Taiwan status still valid? The 47,917 salary limit doesn’t apply to students graduated from Taiwan’s universities staying in Taiwan to work.
For IC packaging companies in Taichung, 44K for someone without experience might be pretty normal to be honest.
My main objection, while many Taiwanese with Master degree will be OK with 44K in Taichung. Very few would be OK with 44K in Malaysia or SE Asia. They would demand expat package for expat placement.
SE Asia placement or travel should be around 60-65K for average Taiwanese to consider.
As mentioned, this seems somewhat lower than the minimum required for a work permit (50something?). However it’s not an unusual offer for a new graduate in Taiwan - I’ve heard of people being offered even less than that. The fact is that you’re bit of a liability for them until you’ve completed your training. It doesn’t make it right, but it’s just something you have to go through when you’re “green”.
OTOH their failure to offer you a sensible career path is a red flag. There should be a big jump in salary once you’re trained up, particularly since they’re preparing you for some kind of supervisory/management position. Returning to Malaysia (where I believe salaries are at least on par with Taiwan) should have nothing to do with it. The three-year bond is just weird; if you sign something like that then there should be some serious benefits involved.
You have some room to negotiate here if you want to take the job - and you definitely need to make sure they comply with the foreign recruitment laws. At the very least, you need to see a significant increase in salary when you return to Malaysia, and this should be set in stone in your contract - for the simple reason that they’d need to pay a lot more than 44K if they recruited local management with the requisite skills.
Ase?
…
Yeah, I didn’t see the part about moving him back to Malaysia. In that case it’s way too low.
What’s the bonus structure like? That’s not bad if they offer proper bonuses. Traditional packaging has very low margins so salaries are not as high as fabs or software.
Once again, the minimum salary for a foreign graduate of a Taiwanese university is minimum wage ( NT$27,470) if the graduate gets their work permit under the points system.
FWIW, a Taiwanese friend with an engineering degree from a good state school in the US but no experience started at a fairly big company in the semiconductor industry (not packing) at NT$35,000/month. His total compensation is a lot higher now. He works very hard.
The ‘guarantee’ sound like a big red flag and a huge, major red flag with flashing lights if what your actually mean is a promissory note (本票). Reputable employers do not do this. It is a very sharp practice that can cause a lot of trouble for you. Here is a government article about the practice.
https://www.gov.tw/News_Content_11_728518.html
I have heard that sometimes these employers are in fact fraudsters who will use the threat or the note against you to force you to do illegal things. Beware!
Legal Aid might be able to advise you.
Yep its a 3 years commitment bond, the lady didn’t mention about paying upfront. Will know the details on next Friday 
What bring you to this hypothesis you encountered similar situation?
Also pretty common in the tech industry now. Technically they can only offer and enforce these bonds if the employers pays for all the professional training and that the employers provides a reasonable compensation for making the employee to commit to a number of years of working there. It’s regulated by Article 15 of the Labor Standards Act.
So you should be getting a monetary reward for signing that bond.
What to watch out for is that you will be taxed for that money, even if you break the bond and decides to leave early, you will still have to pay for the increased tax. Also, if you are going to leave, you gotta have that money ready to return to the company.
Who said the OP graduated from a Taiwan university?
If $44k is the amount they pay locals with the same education, experience, and job title, then they aren’t legally allowed to pay you a higher rate for the same exact job just because you’re a foreigner.
Other people have mentioned a $48k minimum salary for foreigners to secure a work permit. However, this only applies to “white collar” jobs (foreign professional).
Your job offer sounds like a “blue collar” job. You would be a migrant laborer working in a skilled labor job (facilities maintenance). The minimum salary for migrant laborers varies, but the minimum is $33k for intermediate skilled jobs like construction, maintenance, mining and fisheries, etc, which is the highest minimum wage for foreign laborers. $44k is probably a good salary for your job, which I assume is a “higher level” maintenance job.
BTW, $44k is also what local fresh grads with Master’s degrees make. If you’re wondering if you can live decently comfortably as a young single person in Taichung on $44k, the answer is yes.
The $48k minimum salary is for foreign professionals (“white collar” jobs). The minimum salary for intermediate-level foreign skilled labor jobs (like OP’s facilities maintenance job offer) is $33k.
They can’t just pay a foreigner a higher salary than everybody else in the same position just to reach the minimum for a work permit. That would be illegal.
44k sounds really low for an Engineer with Masters…