There’s really only one thing that attracts talent, and that is money. And the companies in Taiwan have too much educated talent in Taiwan that will work for the basic wage.
The government has done a great job providing education cheap but have failed in encouraging the same Taiwan businesses that benefit from good government regulations to boost the salaries to be comparable with the same talent in other countries in the world.
Taiwan has a huge resource of educated people, now the government needs to put in regulations for these companies that have benefited over the last 30 or 40 years to now share that with people in Taiwan and more importantly make working in Taiwan comparable to working in other silicon valley technology STEM places in the rest of the world. Or Taiwan is going to fail.
The Taiwan government keep spending huge amounts of Taiwan taxpayer dollars to build business Parks, but they don’t encourage companies to pass on that benefit to Taiwanese people.
These business parks keep benefiting the corporations in the top 1%. But it does not feed down to the rest of the Taiwanese people that are the source.
Taiwan government, build a technology Business Park, and then tell those companies that come in to pay their employees comparable to other places in the rest of the world.
Yea, when it works in your favor its called the free market, cause in a free labour market you get to chose who you work for. but the same thing, when its not in your favor, is stealing and poaching.
Many might argue educated and talented are 2 different things. The schools here are sub par as far as trying to lead a pack. People here can mostly read, write, communicate and school is cheap. But skilled workforce tends not to be be what spews out of universities.
a huge problem, one I’m in the fence about. Employers are stuck with overwhelmingly shirty employees more often than not. No one is hungry here and jobs are easy to get so there is a disposable attitude here when it comes to work, unlike say Japan。
The employees have equally shirty bosses who are quite equally uneducated and entitled and run a company given to them. So employees have no interest in investing themselves in the company, rightfully so.
So who gives first?
A company isn’t going to reward a person if there is no performance. And a person won’t perform if they feel here is no chance of a reward.
On the other hand China blows Taiwan away in talent. Right or wrong how they do it, I personally dispose that country, but they certainly have their heads stuck slightly less up their added than we do it seems. We can even see factories coming back here from there. Embarrassing.
I personally don’t think the workers are to blame mostly.
I would put zero effort into my work too if I’m getting paid shirty and expected to have high output and long hours. After work all these kids want to do is go home and sleep, the culture sucks the drive and fun out of their life.
As the quote from Peter in office space goes.
“If I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, i don’t see another dime. So what’s the motivation?”
The problem is precisely the proliferation of higher education as opposed to vocational education. Over the past thirty years Taiwan’s tertiary education has shifted towards academic education and neglected the development of professional skills. Hence 70% of university graduates are not really required by industry and were likely not suitable for an academic education to begin with anyways.
Economically advanced and successful countries like Switzerland, Germany, or the Netherlands put more emphasis on technical/vocational education through apprenticeships lasting 3-4 years. In Taiwan on the other hand everybody attends some sort of university - either a comprehensive university or one of the many universities of science and technology - and graduates without practical skills. Of course no economy only needs managers and not everybody has the aptitude to be a manager. Taiwan needs more technical professionals and hence must prioritize its vocational education system. The question is however whether the spoilt strawberry generation is even capable of doing anything else but playing on their phone in class, working part time, and then spending the money in some hipster coffeeshop.
There is no seduction about removing administrative restrictions for Taiwanese to live and work in Mainland China. Rather Taiwanese are making rational choices when opting for career opportunities, higher salaries, and even higher pensions in Mainland China.
On the one hand Taiwanese claim that they value democracy and de-facto independence, on the other hand Taiwanese put themselves in the service of reunification forces. This is a great lesson in behavioral economics.
Obviously the average salary in Mainland China is still lower than the average salary in Taiwan. But most Taiwanese work in cities with comparable or even higher salaries than the Taiwan average.
And I wonder what the source of that data set is. It’s not like travelers who departs for Mainland China from Taoyuan International Airport is asked about their intention.
Also, considering that the same report mentions higher numbers of Taiwanese choosing to work in South East Asia - which conveniently fits into the narrative of the government - I would assume the numbers are not very reliable.
It will be interesting to study the national accounts of Vietnam, Thailand, or Indonesia in 2021 to see if economic interaction with Taiwan did experience meaningful changes.
They are not, but they know when they come back, and they know their labor and and health insurance status, which would be pretty thorough considering that almost every single citizen is registered. Those who are abroad for more than 2 or 3 months and aren’t paying for their insurance scheme would be counted as working overseas. It’s pretty laughable to think that their sole source of information would be questions asked at the airport.
But that does not mean you know where people work. For instance, a good amount of Taiwanese who are absent > 3 months after departing on a Shanghai-bound flight do not actually stay there but transfer to onward flights to Europe or the United States. So again it comes down to the source and quality of data.
This! I Work at my father-in-laws company and er produce hand tools. Once in a while Weber students working part-time. And some of these future engineers neither know how much mm a meter contains nor where the business-end of an powerdrill is.
Sometimes i wonder how they can survive in the world outside ob their oben.
“In Taiwan on the other hand everybody attends some sort of university - either a comprehensive university or one of the many universities of science and technology - and graduates without practical skills.”
Exactly! The population is fairly unskilled and unable to compete. So who caves first? The workers who work and push for more? Or the companies who give motivation for hard meaningful work?
Neither I see, schools and families need to educate the kids as both sides of the table are equally lazy, dumb and rather short sighted. After all, can always just live at home when it doesn’t work out.
Ironically this mess of a situation Taiwan chose to be in has created wonderfully profitable opportunities for entrepreneurs who are at least adequate. The only hurdle there, depending on industry, is red tape and sometimes beyond frustratingly illogical policies and procedures. Enter government responsibility.
Personally I think if you make 40k a month in Taiwan as a chemical engineer and you can make 80-100k in China then you have every right to go get your money. Taiwan wants to keep as much talent as possible, but pay them like shit. Also many Taiwanese leave because it’s much easier to assimilate, you speak the same language and culturally identical.
So what would you do? earn 40k and make sure your bosses son can get another Ferrari under his belt? or get that money and hopefully one day your family can one day live better.
