We are living in outback Australia but have been entertaining the idea of moving to Taiwan one day (my mum’s side of the family is Taiwanese and I have lived in Taiwan for a number of years).
My husband is about to start his heavy vehicle mechanic apprenticeship with Caterpillar Equipment over here, with the view to making decent money wherever Caterpillar has job postings for mechanics. E.g. east coast Australia.
But we were also looking at one day doing a stint in Taiwan. Does anyone know if there are Caterpillar mechanic jobs in Taiwan? If so are there many? Where would we look for those roles (e.g. what website/s)? Would he have to speak Chinese to get the job?
I wouldn’t know the answer to the rest – 104 is the normal job site, so maybe there – but I strongly, strongly suspect the answer to the Chinese one is yes.
Not to mention, there generally are restrictions on the kinds of jobs foreigners can do. Exceptions apply for skilled workers to be sure, but mechanics seem like an industry they’re got pretty well covered here, if the number of scooter shops speaks to anything.
Hopefully I’m wrong and he can find it, that’d definitely be awesome.
Unless you’re using that as a general term for heavy equipment of any brand, I’d be shocked if there was a single piece of Caterpillar equipment on the island as it’s literally the most expensive in the world.
I have worked with companies both in construction and equipment finance, and the price disparity between Cat and any of the Korean, Japanese, or Chinese brands, is just insane.
Yeah I guess it would be good to be able to know how many people CML/中華機械 employ and whether it’s just at their head office or if it’s spread out at different locations all across the country. And like how many people they employ etc. Maybe I should just call them to find out.
Yeah I just had a look at vacancies and it looks like Cat doesn’t pay Australian wages in Taiwan… so that doesn’t pose as enough of an incentive for us to move to Taiwan under this job prospect. Unless it’s like here in Australia where there are companies apart from Caterpillar itself that hire Cat-trained mechanics to work on their plant equipment, that I could look into. But I’m guessing there isn’t much apart from CML, and if there were other companies they still would pay similar to what CML is paying ($30,000 NT/month)
That’s below minimum wage so perhaps that info is outdated. But skilled work don’t pay above minimum wage with additions for overtime or holiday work. However you’re not likely to work holidays because few want to pay double.
Most the time they’ll be hiring filippinos for trade or heavy equipment operators.
I think it’s current because it’s on 104 and it’s still $500 NT over monthly minimum wage, which sits at $29,500 per month in 2026. The way they worded it is “above $30,000 per month" so maybe it could be a lot higher?
