An estimated 25,000 Vietnamese workers have gone missing in Taiwan

Huh?! Didn’t know it was this high. I guess 150 running away on a tour is relatively nothing compared to 25k running away.

So many Vietnamese in Taiwan legally and illegally, and I rarely meet any, except in small town food stalls.

They’d be less likely to go missing if Taiwan didn’t operate that stupid broker system.

That story doesn’t exactly add up though. How does she think she can earn more than $500 take-home pay by going illegal? I can think of only one possibility.

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What possibility is that ?

Btw, my cleaning lady is illegal and by her looks I’m 100% sure she is not an prostitute on the side

Indeed. My point is, does she earn more than $500 after expenses? In other words, is going illegal really financially advantageous, or is she just bad at math?

No doubt she earns more than she would in Vietnam. But if the blue-collar employment system weren’t so fucked-up, she would have more employment opportunities and the government would get their tax cut.

S.E.Asian factory workers are treated like cattle, but they’re not treated like slaves. Their take-home pay is actually fairly good precisely because their (low-quality) accommodation and food is provided by the employer. Removing the degrading ritual of brokers and fees would make them feel a lot better treated, even if they’re not.

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is this always? I think I have seen some contract saying certain amount is subtracted as accommodation and food fee.

Yeah dunno how much she makes, but quick back of the envelope calculation would suggest 20k/month + if she got the clients

I pay her a thousand to clean the place up(once a week), and it takes her around 4 hours. She doesn’t need that many more cleaning gigs to get up to 20k

Yes, that’s the usual rate. 5 jobs a week is not unusual. So I agree with your 20K ($600) calculation.

The problem is that she then has rent, lunch and transport to pay for, which would be provided for a nominal deduction if you’re employed in a factory. All things considered, she’s probably earning the same, for the same amount of effort, as she would do assembling widgets. The only thing that makes the factory job unappealing is (a) lack of freedom and (b) the broker fee.

Those two downsides aren’t inherent in the market: they’re imposed by the government. So just let factories hire foreigners directly, if they want to. Let skilled Vietnamese people come here on the same terms as Westerners. Have a visa quota like the US, if necessary. You’ll still get illegals coming in as tourists, but they’ll have far less incentive to do so.

I think assembling widgets is more effort, she would probably be doing 8+ hours a day vs cleaning is around 4+ per day(plus transportation etc)

i-mei is doing this?

Possibly. So why not just let Vietnamese cleaners in with a Cleaner Visa, if there’s a market for it and Taiwanese people don’t want to do it?

Is it legal for them to do that? Do they employ their own brokers or something? I was under the impression you HAD to hire via a broker.

I don’t know why they don’t just let them in, but at the moment they don’t so it’s appealing to go illegal to do prostitution cum cleaning

they can hire foreign workers directly.

Direct Hiring Service for Foreign Workers
https://dhsc.wda.gov.tw/?md=enindex&cl=index&at=index
https://dhsc.wda.gov.tw/newsdetail_468.html

Most workers will not see much of their salaries as they pay brokers at least 1500 USD up to a year´s wages to come to work here.

So even if their salary is good, it is better to go rogue as they will actually get the money, not lose it to the broker, phantom fees for food and calls and whatever they can make up. It is not only food and lodging.

Moreover, the conditions can be brutal. Many time sthey are locked in, and that is why there are so many fatalities in fires. The dorms are right next to the factories and they are not allowed to wander. Day off? Ask any caregiver in the neighborhood.

Because there is a mafia controlled business. To get the work permit, pay. To get an employer, pay. To get a phone, pay… One wonders if it is cheaper for factories to hire directly, why they pay brokers? Might not be that voluntary…

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It is illegal for a foreigner to offer a Filipino a job abroad. RA10022 provides that:

Third-world governments depend upon keeping everyone poor and stupid to maintain power. If they allow too many citizens to see how proper countries work, they’d be facing torches and pitchforks at the palace gates.

Fortunately, laws like RA10022 are so nonsensical that workaround usually exist - the direct route is simply to put money in the right pockets, but there are usually gaping loopholes in the language that can be exploited: third world politicians think that using high-falutin’ language (like that dangling ‘therein’) makes them sound clever, when in fact it just destroys what little logic there is. I imagine i-mei hired some Filipino lawyers and threw some cash at the problem to make it go away.

It may be done under the Government-to-Government Program (Special Hiring Program for Taiwan).

http://www.poea.gov.ph/shpt/shpt.html

NIA was busy last weekend.

They probably ended up in an abattoir and have been consumed by now. :wink:

Well they are distributed across the entire island and probably most in center and south.