Appallingly Low Salaries: Part Deux

Work Working in Taiwan
61

I love this thread the attitudes of about 50% are similar to my own and the rest of you need to re-prioritise your lives or accept where your lifestyles will take you.

Taiwan is not low paid by Asian standards. Average salaries now are in the region of US$18K a year (NT$45K a month). Note that this includes your bank manager, teachers and local chicken farmer as its an average. The average in Hong Kong is about the same (HK$12K a month) despite what your average Taiwanese would have you believe. The killer for me is that Japan’s average HOUSEHOLD income is now only about US$50K a year so it ain’t that much higher.

So what this tells us is that some people are earning a lot and some are earning nada. As already pointed out, if you aren’t happy with your share of the pie then you need to do something differently.

There are lots of choices: -
You can go back home
You can get qualified (dr, accountant, lawyer are all good)
You can pay your dues in a technical field (satelite instalations, stock brokers etc)
You could go into sales
You could start your own business - this doesn’t have to cost much money
You can go home and work in a richer, more structured society and probably pay less tax to boot

I was talking with a forumosan offline recently and let slip what I make a month and he was outraged. How is that right? I worked very hard for almost 20 years to get to where I am. I’ve always worked hard even as a kid, its in my nature.

I’ll help anyone, as will most of the guys on f.com, if you want specific advice, ideas, direction just ask but the blood sweat and tears, they are all your own my friends.

Peace

62

[quote=“Edgar Allen”]I love this thread the attitudes of about 50% are similar to my own and the rest of you need to re-prioritise your lives or accept where your lifestyles will take you.

Taiwan is not low paid by Asian standards. Average salaries now are in the region of US$18K a year (NT$45K a month). Note that this includes your bank manager, teachers and local chicken farmer as its an average. The average in Hong Kong is about the same (HK$12K a month) despite what your average Taiwanese would have you believe. The killer for me is that Japan’s average HOUSEHOLD income is now only about US$50K a year so it ain’t that much higher.

So what this tells us is that some people are earning a lot and some are earning nada. As already pointed out, if you aren’t happy with your share of the pie then you need to do something differently.

There are lots of choices: -
You can go back home
You can get qualified (dr, accountant, lawyer are all good)
You can pay your dues in a technical field (satelite instalations, stock brokers etc)
You could go into sales
You could start your own business - this doesn’t have to cost much money
You can go home and work in a richer, more structured society and probably pay less tax to boot

I was talking with a forumosan offline recently and let slip what I make a month and he was outraged. How is that right? I worked very hard for almost 20 years to get to where I am. I’ve always worked hard even as a kid, its in my nature.

I’ll help anyone, as will most of the guys on f.com, if you want specific advice, ideas, direction just ask but the blood sweat and tears, they are all your own my friends.

Peace[/quote]

Easy for you to say, being 5th in line to the Throne of England…

63

[quote=“Edgar Allen”]I love this thread the attitudes of about 50% are similar to my own and the rest of you need to re-prioritise your lives or accept where your lifestyles will take you.

Taiwan is not low paid by Asian standards. Average salaries now are in the region of US$18K a year (NT$45K a month). Note that this includes your bank manager, teachers and local chicken farmer as its an average. The average in Hong Kong is about the same (HK$12K a month) despite what your average Taiwanese would have you believe. The killer for me is that Japan’s average HOUSEHOLD income is now only about US$50K a year so it ain’t that much higher.

So what this tells us is that some people are earning a lot and some are earning nada. As already pointed out, if you aren’t happy with your share of the pie then you need to do something differently.

There are lots of choices: -
You can go back home
You can get qualified (dr, accountant, lawyer are all good)
You can pay your dues in a technical field (satelite instalations, stock brokers etc)
You could go into sales
You could start your own business - this doesn’t have to cost much money
You can go home and work in a richer, more structured society and probably pay less tax to boot

I was talking with a forumosan offline recently and let slip what I make a month and he was outraged. How is that right? I worked very hard for almost 20 years to get to where I am. I’ve always worked hard even as a kid, its in my nature.

I’ll help anyone, as will most of the guys on f.com, if you want specific advice, ideas, direction just ask but the blood sweat and tears, they are all your own my friends.

Peace[/quote]

Lots of people work hard all their lives but don’t get paid well, stuff doesn’t work out, start a business and lose money, don’t have good financial background. They can’t afford to go to law school etc, they have commitments. Not everybody can do sales, start a business etc. FYI there have been 7500 companies shut down in Taiwan this month and only 2000 that have opened. Working hard is only a small part of the story (tell that to the 700 million farmers in China). I think the frustrations that many of us feel that have been in Taiwan a while are to do with the trend of salaries here, which has been inexorably downwards. As a westerner we do have more choices (sometimes) but I feel particularly agrieved for my Taiwanese friends and family thru marriage. It’s not about earning the megabucks you frequently tell everyone you earn, it’s about earning decent money for regular people.

Taiwan is not low paid by SE Asian standards but is low paid compared to the other tigers that it used to lead - Singapore, HK, Korea. One of the reason’s is the general malaise in the economy, the other is the low gearing of the NTD to suit exporters.
The numbers you quote above don’t sound right to me, just from being a visitor to Japan and HK, especially Japan where it’s obvious there is still a lot more money floating around than Taiwan. Perhaps median is a better choice i.e. what are most people earning per year. Average in Taiwan could be extremely distorted if you are taking in small and big business owners who generally do well in this environment.

Finally in a just and healthy society the idea that people get paid a decent salary is good for everybody. If it happens that the only way you can get a good salary is in sales or finance well that screws 90% of the people. Even then I heard finance laid off about 30% of employees this year.
The worst bit is that it’s obvious that one of the reasons the domestic economy can’t support itself is because of the low salaries. Recently Ma-Jing Jeo went and bought himself some shoes to stimulate the domestic economy. His idea in his own words was ‘to give a good example to high income people to spend money in Taiwan’- WTF! Did I hear that right, I said to myself. When he was asked about how people can buy things with low incomes he said ‘it’s to encourage richer people to spend money to help the economy’. That was the solution…

If employers paid more there would be more money in the domestic economy which would actually grow their business! Property, stocks everything would improve, it’s not a zero-sum game. Then Taiwan would be a place that people could stay in and prosper.

64

Look its not about working hard on its own, its about working hard and making choices. The people on this forum are educated (not you Sandman) and able to do pretty much whatever they want to but about half of the people in this thread are whining about their low incomes. They have choices and I am not naive enough to think that everyone does.

As for Mr Ma’s stimulation package (pair of shoes) you clearly don’t understand what he was saying. I bought my mother in law a car last year for similar reasons. If everyone is investing offshore and saving cash under the bed or hoarding gold the economy doesn’t stand a chance. China understand this “multiplier effect” and consistently encourages internal demand. The problem for Taiwan is that most things are imported but every little helps.

65

The money both from large and small investors goes offshore mostly, true. My point is one of the reasons that happens is there is no faith in the domestic economy. One of the major reasons for that is that people’s incomes are so low that they can’t provide any boost or demand. It’s a vicious cycle. It won’t be cured by advocating people to ‘buy local’, that’s been proven to fail again and again all over the world. Ireland (where I’m from) tried it in the 80s, complete joke. Same thing in America with Ford and GM, people moan about Chinese stuff but then buy it anyway. Sure there are Americans or Japanese who like to buy local but usually when you look at the reason they are buying local it’s because they prefer their own local style or it’s better (e.g. US-SUVS, Japanese- Computer stuff- cos it’s the best anyway). Anyway the fact is if you have a 200 NTD to spend you are not going to buy M.I.T you are going to buy M.I.C. shoes and anyway how is buying shoes going to help the economy :unamused:

Having more money in your pocket allows you to demand a better standard of good or service, that good or service can then be sold overseas very competitively at good prices and the local higher income can support the development of indigeneous industry until it gets big enough to get on the global stage.

A major wedge of incomes are locked into an increasingly small subset of people, mostly who park their money overseas or save it to emigrate or send their kids overseas for education. The government here doesn’t focus on this because they too have their kids living overseas with their green cards and stolen funds. The parties in govt. never advocate real programs to boost salaries because this would offend their main backers, big businesspeople. These people in the main just see Taiwan as a temporary place (in their eyes although their spend the best years of their lives here) to make money.

66

I was very sceptical of Ireland’s policy of “full employment at low wages” during the 1990s. However, I think now that it was right. A small increase in salary, or even getting people off the dole, does benefit local shopkeepers, pubs, and restaurants. The reverse is now being shown to be true as people cut their discretionary spending in the current recession. Housebuilders do employ a fair amount of local labour, and the whizzing about of lorries and increased activity at sawmills and so on does benefit the local economy. That’s all buggered now.

I think the problem with Taiwan is the general level of salary is only just above subsistence, and then there are the very rich. It’s the in-between guys with enough confidence to support the great rump of sole trader shopkeepers, restaurateurs, tradesmen and so on that are lacking.

Compared to very poor countries, Taiwan is OK. But Taiwan did have the potential to compare itself to Singapore, Hong Kong, and even Shanghai. Accountants in Shanghai are simply paid more than they are in Taiwan. I know that because I was a recruitment consultant in Shanghai. Indeed, PRC accountants are pricing themselves out of the market. But what has happened? Malaysian and Singaporean accountants with UK certification and flawless English are being imported! The great lump of Taiwanese are still working in manufacturing in China. Someone suggested the Taiwanese are bored of learning English. The number one most important thing for any of my MNC clients was English language ability. I was placing experienced PRC accountants with experience abroad at salaries well in excess of NT$150k a month. And with staggering English. Even youngsters who had gone to public school in England and then English university. Turning up to interviews with Turnbull & Asser shirts and marbles in the mouth.

Where is the Taiwanese middle class? And what does a well-educated Taiwanese chap do for a living once he returns home? I was asked yesterday what Taiwan does for a living and the best I could come up with was “makes a fortune in China and then hides the proceeds in Swiss bank accounts”.

I hope Ma Ying-jeou has a plan, because otherwise it’ll just be the dolies and the millionaires left. For the last 20 years people have been screaming about direct links and running North Aisa/China regional offices out of Taipei. Cheaper and more convenient than plying the HKG-SHA air corridor. But I think it’s too late. Shanghai gets more livable by the day. Sometimes you can even get a taxi. China desks are finally being run out of Shanghai instead of Hong Kong. The opportunities for a large rump of middle class professionals from all over the world unloading their discretionary spending in Taipei are getting thinner and thinner. Being sent to Taiwan is regarded as the equivalent of a UK minister being sent to the Northern Ireland Office. You can’t make a prosperous country with just the tax dodging mega-rich and the sharecropper. Sod the fecking peasants and their “ooh direct links means political union with China”. So what? All the bloody money’s gone to China anyway. What are you left with? Your big smelly field that no-one wants. Like some bogman jumping up and down in a shuck in Mayo ranting and raving about Oliver Cromwell whilst his entire family are living in North London and getting on with life in the 21st century.

NT$100k is only RMB21k. That’s not very much, but in Taipei it’s considered a fortune. How can you have non-credit funded domestic consumption on money like that? Where are all the customers’ yachts? How much is that doggy in the window? Does your chewi… alright, alright… :laughing:

67

That’s pretty crass, EA…

68

I’m very curious about this downward slide of Taiwan.

Why isn’t there some sort of revolt from below (ie. electing politicians who will actually really change things) where people realise that for the average person, things are getting harder and harder while the guys at the top continue to syphon money off overseas? At the very least, you’d think there’s a real conflict of interest for any politician who has a U.S. green card (or any other foreign residency/citizenship).

69

There are many reasons

  1. Media- Owned by business conglomerates and wealthy families. They regularly decry the ‘state of the economy’ and ‘unemployment’ but never advocate any policy to increase wages. There is no Chinese language media off-island that is impartial due to political situations.
  2. Politics- People’s focus is continually being distracted due to ideological reasons and also the media (check the % of time on TV given to politics).
  3. Education- Education levels still have to work through the population
  4. Isolation political, cultural and economically especially- Because the vast majority of Taiwanese don’t have a chance to really see how it’s done overseas, personally,they just can’t get ideas how to improve it. For instance the concept of unions here is pretty much unknown, probably many people think it’s still illegal.
  5. Passivity- Taiwanese in general are very ‘bei dong’ passive unless organised and pushed to do it. They need a fighting united spirit but it’s just not there in the current generation, it’s really a me me me type of place.
  6. Let down by emigrants- The Taiwanese long term emigrants generally don’t return, if they do they don’t really add the experience to the benefit of the country as a whole, they just aim for a state job and rake in the money to send the next generation overseas. The 1-2 yr overseas masters that most of them do, they just don’t learn much about local living styles. I believe when they get a chance to go on work-holiday programs as they do to Australia they will learn a lot more.
70

[quote=“Lord Lucan”]I was very sceptical of Ireland’s policy of “full employment at low wages” during the 1990s. However, I think now that it was right. A small increase in salary, or even getting people off the dole, does benefit local shopkeepers, pubs, and restaurants. The reverse is now being shown to be true as people cut their discretionary spending in the current recession. Housebuilders do employ a fair amount of local labour, and the whizzing about of lorries and increased activity at sawmills and so on does benefit the local economy. That’s all buggered now.

I think the problem with Taiwan is the general level of salary is only just above subsistence, and then there are the very rich. It’s the in-between guys with enough confidence to support the great rump of sole trader shopkeepers, restaurateurs, tradesmen and so on that are lacking.

Compared to very poor countries, Taiwan is OK. But Taiwan did have the potential to compare itself to Singapore, Hong Kong, and even Shanghai. Accountants in Shanghai are simply paid more than they are in Taiwan. I know that because I was a recruitment consultant in Shanghai. Indeed, PRC accountants are pricing themselves out of the market. But what has happened? Malaysian and Singaporean accountants with UK certification and flawless English are being imported! The great lump of Taiwanese are still working in manufacturing in China. Someone suggested the Taiwanese are bored of learning English. The number one most important thing for any of my MNC clients was English language ability. I was placing experienced PRC accountants with experience abroad at salaries well in excess of NT$150k a month. And with staggering English. Even youngsters who had gone to public school in England and then English university. Turning up to interviews with Turnbull & Asser shirts and marbles in the mouth.

Where is the Taiwanese middle class? And what does a well-educated Taiwanese chap do for a living once he returns home? I was asked yesterday what Taiwan does for a living and the best I could come up with was “makes a fortune in China and then hides the proceeds in Swiss bank accounts”.

I hope Ma Ying-jeou has a plan, because otherwise it’ll just be the dolies and the millionaires left. For the last 20 years people have been screaming about direct links and running North Aisa/China regional offices out of Taipei. Cheaper and more convenient than plying the HKG-SHA air corridor. But I think it’s too late. Shanghai gets more livable by the day. Sometimes you can even get a taxi. China desks are finally being run out of Shanghai instead of Hong Kong. The opportunities for a large rump of middle class professionals from all over the world unloading their discretionary spending in Taipei are getting thinner and thinner. Being sent to Taiwan is regarded as the equivalent of a UK minister being sent to the Northern Ireland Office. You can’t make a prosperous country with just the tax dodging mega-rich and the sharecropper. Sod the fecking peasants and their “ooh direct links means political union with China”. So what? All the bloody money’s gone to China anyway. What are you left with? Your big smelly field that no-one wants. Like some bogman jumping up and down in a shuck in Mayo ranting and raving about Oliver Cromwell whilst his entire family are living in North London and getting on with life in the 21st century.

NT$100k is only RMB21k. That’s not very much, but in Taipei it’s considered a fortune. How can you have non-credit funded domestic consumption on money like that? Where are all the customers’ yachts? How much is that doggy in the window? Does your chewi… alright, alright… :laughing:[/quote]

That’s a damn fine post.

[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]I’m very curious about this downward slide of Taiwan.

Why isn’t there some sort of revolt from below (ie. electing politicians who will actually really change things) where people realise that for the average person, things are getting harder and harder while the guys at the top continue to syphon money off overseas? [color=#FF0000]At the very least, you’d think there’s a real conflict of interest for any politician who has a U.S. green card (or any other foreign residency/citizenship).[/color][/quote]

You’d think so, wouldn’t you. And when you have expats becoming Taiwan citizens being forced to give up their original nationality, then you’d think that people in public office should at the very least be forced to give up dual nationalities and green cards. But if politicians are 100% invested in the country (along with their families) then you have the Chiang Kai Shek Effect. Steal what you can for as long as you can, all the while sending your kids abroad and once the thieving is done, die or run like hell.
I believe Chen Shui Bian is a graduate of this school of thought. I’d be very surprised if his lot is still around in ten years time (except his crazy daughter, but I think she gets off on media attention, even though her publicized rants say otherwise…).

71

There is definitely still an island mentality and a lack of interest in using internationalisation as a means of creating an economy not totally dependent on Taiwanese manufacturing investment on the mainland. When they say all politics is local nowhere more is it so than in Taiwan. That’s my impression anyway.

Has there not been though a step in the right direction with the liberalisation of work permits via the “visa card” that was posted about elsewhere? Combined with a decent flight time to Shanghai that could be a real boost for Taipei, at least. Why not have China’s financial and accounting back office work done in Taipei, much the same as the financial centre in Dublin provides back office for a lot of banks and public bodies in the UK and America? I seem to remember NY State tax returns being processed in Dublin, for example. An an Asia Pacific HQ Taipei is cheaper than Singapore or Hong Kong and just as central if they sort out direct links. Would be a nice boost for the housing market too. Taipei apartments are very shabby compared to those in Shanghai or Singapore, even at the NT$40k mark. Once you get a few thousand expats moving in, whether they be Asians or Europeans, the demand for nice apartments will soar. It’s worth pointing out that regional expat transfers to Shanghai are often intra-Asia and it doesn’t matter whether the chap is originally ex-India or ex-US, if he’s the CFO of Citibank he’ll be looking at a big package with a generous housing allowance. These things still exist. There’s a nice 40-50 thousand NT pumped into the economy every month for each bod sent here.

72

[quote=“bismarck”][quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]I’m very curious about this downward slide of Taiwan.

Why isn’t there some sort of revolt from below (ie. electing politicians who will actually really change things) where people realise that for the average person, things are getting harder and harder while the guys at the top continue to syphon money off overseas? [color=#FF0000]At the very least, you’d think there’s a real conflict of interest for any politician who has a U.S. green card (or any other foreign residency/citizenship).[/color][/quote]

You’d think so, wouldn’t you. And when you have expats becoming Taiwan citizens being forced to give up their original nationality, then you’d think that people in public office should at the very least be forced to give up dual nationalities and green cards. But if politicians are 100% invested in the country (along with their families) then you have the Chiang Kai Shek Effect. Steal what you can for as long as you can, all the while sending your kids abroad and once the thieving is done, die or run like hell.
I believe Chen Shui Bian is a graduate of this school of thought. I’d be very surprised if his lot is still around in ten years time (except his crazy daughter, but I think she gets off on media attention, even though her publicized rants say otherwise…).[/quote]

That’s the thing. I wouldn’t give up my Australian citizenship to become Taiwanese, not because I’m that tied to being Australian, but because who the hell wants Taiwanese citizenship? If we were talking E.U., Canadian, American, etc., yeah, I’d consider it. Taiwanese though? Especially since for all I know, at any moment between now and the next twenty years, China will finally stop playing games. Taiwanese citizenship might be one thing, but Chinese? You have to be kidding! I work with a Taiwanese guy who has Canadian citizenship and he looks down on Taiwanese citizenship and says he’d be just as happy to give it up (of course, this may be because he’s currently doing military service). Is this fairly common? I don’t know, but what a state of affairs if it’s true! Likewise, my ex-girlfriend’s nephew was born in the States while her brother-in-law was doing some advanced medical studies. I’d be very surprised if her sister getting pregnant and giving birth in the States wasn’t very much a plan to shore up an alternative residence to Taiwan. Indeed, she said they were planning on moving there some time soon.

Yes though, if Taiwanese politicians want to “serve” Taiwan, then they should stop hedging their bets, or completely selling out Taiwan all together.

For me, if I come to live here for the long term, which I probably will, I’d like to be able to really put down roots, but how can I when the political situation is not stable here at all? If politicians had to live with the long term consequences of their actions, they’d be more likely to sort that out. Likewise, how can I put down roots here when I’m not allowed to do so economically? It’s one thing to prevent foreigners from owning property so the country doesn’t get bought up entirely, but surely a few thousand foreigners owning their own apartments is not in the same league, nor is a few tens of thousands of foreigners investing in the local stock market on a small scale. In the end, I’m forced to either put it all in a local’s (ie. a future wife’s) name, or I’m forced to hedge my bets and put a fair bit of my money off-shore, so again, a whole lot of money flows out of Taiwan.

73

I agree with most of your points GuyInTaiwan.
There’s a few things I’d like to point out, it is possible to reclaim your original citizenship after giving it up temporarily. I know, it’s a pain in the ass and unfair but it is possible.
There also no real restrictions on foreigners purchasing shares on the local market. If you have an ARC I’m pretty sure you can go into any security house and open a trading account tomorrow if you wished. Similarly property, there isn’t a regulation stating foreigners can’t own property, the problem is in getting the mortgage loan which is difficult. If co-signed with spouse it’s no problem at all I’ve heard though to get the loan.
LordLucan, you are Irish too, we know that things can change from bad to good from our own experience, a lot of people just don’t believe it but it’s possible for a regional backwater capital to transform itself with the right policies and willpower.
I know of many Japanese and HK small scale businessmen setting up trading firms in Taiwan due to the ease of doing business here and the lower cost of business. They have found out the secret, why do biz in Singapore or HK when you can do it in Taipei with half the cost overall and even better sourcing and labour supply. Make no mistake, direct flights to cities in China will open this place up for business big time if correlated with certain attractive policies to base offices in Taiwan. I would say many Taiwanese SMEs are ripe for takeover and investment by foreign firms in this situation. I have experience of opening a registered biz here and while setting it up and getting the bank account involved a little bit of work after that it was plain sailing and accounting fees were cheap.
Taiwan is a great place to do certain types of business and there’s boatloads of potential here. I’m not sure I’d like the idea of all these businessmen jacking up the price of renting though :slight_smile:

74

[quote=“headhonchoII”]I agree with most of your points GuyInTaiwan.
There’s a few things I’d like to point out, it is possible to reclaim your original citizenship after giving it up temporarily. I know, it’s a pain in the ass and unfair but it is possible.
There also no real restrictions on foreigners purchasing shares on the local market. If you have an ARC I’m pretty sure you can go into any security house and open a trading account tomorrow if you wished. Similarly property, there isn’t a regulation stating foreigners can’t own property, the problem is in getting the mortgage loan which is difficult. If co-signed with spouse it’s no problem at all I’ve heard though to get the loan.
LordLucan, you are Irish too, we know that things can change from bad to good from our own experience, a lot of people just don’t believe it but it’s possible for a regional backwater capital to transform itself with the right policies and willpower.
I know of many Japanese and HK small scale businessmen setting up trading firms in Taiwan due to the ease of doing business here and the lower cost of business. They have found out the secret, why do biz in Singapore or HK when you can do it in Taipei with half the cost overall and even better sourcing and labour supply. Make no mistake, direct flights to cities in China will open this place up for business big time if correlated with certain attractive policies to base offices in Taiwan. I would say many Taiwanese SMEs are ripe for takeover and investment by foreign firms in this situation. I have experience of opening a registered biz here and while setting it up and getting the bank account involved a little bit of work after that it was plain sailing and accounting fees were cheap.
Taiwan is a great place to do certain types of business and there’s boatloads of potential here. I’m not sure I’d like the idea of all these businessmen jacking up the price of renting though :slight_smile:[/quote]

headhonchoII: Really? Thanks. That changes things a whole lot. I’ll definitely look into the shares thing because what I really resent about Australia is that they charge me so much in tax (ie. anything at all, given that I don’t even live there) on my investments.

The property thing is really good though. It gives me a real incentive to actually get a property with my future wife and pay that off as quickly as possible (or even sell some of my other investments so I can buy it outright) without worrying about it all being in her name and then being up that well-known creek if I ever got divorced.

75

I have students who are accountants at a major MNC. Their back-office work is being moved from Taiwan to China. I don’t know if this reflects a trend or one GM’s idiocy tho’.

76

I have students who are accountants at a major MNC. Their back-office work is being moved from Taiwan to China. I don’t know if this reflects a trend or one GM’s idiocy tho’.[/quote]

That’s quite surprising. A qualified accountant in Shanghai with Big-4 experience is making RMB 15k + which is NT$72k. I didn’t realise accountants were so well paid in Taiwan. I suppose it’s possible a lot of very low-level stuff might be done in China, but employees on under Rmb 10k that are any good at all are very few and far between. I would expect a more senior financial planning and strategy accountant in Shanghai to command at least Rmb 35k which is nearly NT$170k.

77

I have students who are accountants at a major MNC. Their back-office work is being moved from Taiwan to China. I don’t know if this reflects a trend or one GM’s idiocy tho’.[/quote]

That’s quite surprising. A qualified accountant in Shanghai with Big-4 experience is making RMB 15k + which is NT$72k. I didn’t realise accountants were so well paid in Taiwan. I suppose it’s possible a lot of very low-level stuff might be done in China, but employees on under Rmb 10k that are any good at all are very few and far between. I would expect a more senior financial planning and strategy accountant in Shanghai to command at least Rmb 35k which is nearly NT$170k.[/quote]

It’s a trend, not one GM’s idiocy. Greater China and at time North Asia Finance operations have already been, or are being, moved to SuZhou or Dalian. The staff there are not quite so expensive as Shanghai. From personal experience, in terms of quality, while the level of accountacy would not be considered acceptable outside of Asia, the good candidates are no worse than Taiwan.

78

I don’t remember where the accounting was going, but it wasn’t Shanghai. Somewhere a bit more provincial. And NT$72K doesn’t sound like too much for these people, judging by the stuff they talked about (eg investments). This is a company that provides education subsidies, in-house masseurs, etc.

I guess the moral is that a hard-working well-qualified lady in her 40’s in Taiwan can earn as much as a newly-graduated whitey who can keep his alcohol intake down enough that he shows up to work every day for six hours. But she might find her job gets outsourced to the mainland in the near future.

Some of my other 1-1 students are also pretty highly-paid, more than the accountants. They do “sales”, but it’s really relationship-building with customers in Taiwan. I don’t have exact numbers but I think we’re in the NT$150-200,000 range for guys with 15-20 years experience who have worked their way up from starting at ~40,000. One has lost over a million on the stock market this year, but can afford it.

I also have a friend who used to do B2B sales, first in Taiwan and then internationally. This was real sales with a requirement to actually get orders from customers after meeting them. She quit her job to take some time off recently, and then started looking around. At one point she was considering accepting a position on “only” NT$65K, plus bonuses, because she was interested in the company, thought the work would be challenging, and saw opportunities for growth. She figured it would be worth taking a significant pay-cut for, then changed her mind and is now working on a temporary project to keep herself busy while looking for her next job. She’s in her early 30’s and is already used to being well-rewarded.

And then there was the electronic engineer who made NT$3mill last year in salary and bonuses. It’s not really a lot though, is it?

It seems that even at a pretty high level, working for a big profitable organisation that isn’t afraid to reward people, salaries are not humungous by any means.

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I don’t remember where the accounting was going, but it wasn’t Shanghai. Somewhere a bit more provincial. And NT$72K doesn’t sound like too much for these people, judging by the stuff they talked about (eg investments). This is a company that provides education subsidies, in-house masseurs, etc.

I guess the moral is that a hard-working well-qualified lady in her 40’s in Taiwan can earn as much as a newly-graduated whitey who can keep his alcohol intake down enough that he shows up to work every day for six hours. But she might find her job gets outsourced to the mainland in the near future.

Some of my other 1-1 students are also pretty highly-paid, more than the accountants. They do “sales”, but it’s really relationship-building with customers in Taiwan. I don’t have exact numbers but I think we’re in the NT$150-200,000 range for guys with 15-20 years experience who have worked their way up from starting at ~40,000. One has lost over a million on the stock market this year, but can afford it.

I also have a friend who used to do B2B sales, first in Taiwan and then internationally. This was real sales with a requirement to actually get orders from customers after meeting them. She quit her job to take some time off recently, and then started looking around. At one point she was considering accepting a position on “only” NT$65K, plus bonuses, because she was interested in the company, thought the work would be challenging, and saw opportunities for growth. She figured it would be worth taking a significant pay-cut for, then changed her mind and is now working on a temporary project to keep herself busy while looking for her next job. She’s in her early 30’s and is already used to being well-rewarded.

And then there was the electronic engineer who made NT$3mill last year in salary and bonuses. It’s not really a lot though, is it?

It seems that even at a pretty high level, working for a big profitable organisation that isn’t afraid to reward people, salaries are not humungous by any means.[/quote]

I think the worry about outsourcing to the mainland is there especially in regard to back office work but if so wouldn’t Hong Kong have outsourced everybody already? I think Taiwan doesn’t really have much accountancy work to out-source anyway and the cost differential maybe wouldn’t be worth the effort.
The country/city has to add value rather than just be a cheap alternative, it can do that by the investment and tax policies put in place aswell as by the workforce and transport links and general living environment available.
The examples of salary workers you mention Loretta are few and far between in Taiwan, sales work is a fine way to make a living for some people but it can only support a certain amount of people, hard to do when older and burnout rate is very high. It’s very detrimental to women especially and you can’t really have it all, kids and a family. It may well be the main reason your client quit the job. Sales is one of the few jobs that CAN pay well in Taiwan. If they are locals earning 150k-200k/mth that’s serious dosh in Taiwan, that’s unusual.

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I wonder how the whole thing is going to work now the Renminbi is soaring off into the sunset.