Migrant Workers, the secret ingredient that keeps Taiwan functioning

Politics Taiwan Politics
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Let’s discuss: are Indonesian and foreign workers the secret ingredient that keeps Taiwan running?

Or, put another way, if Taiwan were to lose all the foreign workers (of which Indonesia is the largest source), would Taiwan mostly fall apart?

  • Taiwan would barely notice (0-10% impact)
  • Taiwan would be affected moderately (10-30% impact)
  • Taiwan would be affected a lot (30-60% impact)
  • Taiwan would collapse (60%-100% impact)
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Note, “impact” is a purposefully vague term. GDP would not be the only impact. Longevity outcomes and family stress outcomes also matter.

For sake of clarity, consider this hypothetical scenario: a law passes that kicks out 95% of foreign workers in 1 year. (5% of highly skilled labor can stay, so no brain drain or loss of irreplaceable skills.) How big is the impact on Taiwan?

context

I was watching a travel show about Singapore, and the host asked (with some edginess), “so it seems like the reason for Singapore’s success are the low paid indonesian nannies and helpers. If you didn’t have them, you couldn’t focus on your high paying jobs”. And the well off locals basically said, “yes.”

So, Taiwan has a lot of people who say it is great because of cultural values and education and good leadership. I think those all play a part. But I think a bigger part is the low-paid workers, especially those taking care of (richer and middle-class) old people.

Yes, there are some locals (Taiwan citizens, born in Taiwan) that do these jobs. And many low-paid service workers and restaurant workers who are Taiwanese. But in elder-care and some of the more demanding jobs, it seems like foreign workers dominate the number of workers. Partly because I think most Taiwanese think those jobs are beneath them or pay too little.

Many of the foreign workers also do factory work, construction, and fishing, but those industries also have a lot of Taiwan people. (Source: Wikipedia, foreign workers in taiwan)

Note: i say indonesian because those are the ones I see in live-in elder care. Philippines and Vietnam are also large sources of foreign workers.

aside

I have lived in the USA, and there has been a long time that migrant workers (legal immigrants and also undocumented) have dominated construction and restaurant work. One person said that the New York City restaurant industry would collapse without latino workers.

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No.

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make poll

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Not fall apart, but the economy would nose dive…

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Use robots

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Robots are expensive and it’s still far away to have robots replacing elder cares in private homes… Hard enough to make a business case for robots in elder care homes with 100’s of elders, how to make a bc for one robot per person that have to be an extremely advanced robot? 10-20 years from now, maybe ok, but not today

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Robots with SMRs

Terminators

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If you do anything abruptly, it will hurt (see tariffs). If amortized over a decade or more, market would have time to adjust and everything would be fine.

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No. They’re not underpaid that much compared to locals, we just don’t have enough workforce. It’s shitty that some are abused but many are paid fairly, especially the factory workers. The real problem is the daily racism they face.

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No it wouldn’t.

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So those white color workers and blue color workers that today are working while their old mother/father is taken care of by a woman from Indonesia, their contribution to the society is zero? So doesn’t matter if they have to stay home?

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Where did I say that?

You said Nose Dive. That’s a pretty strong term.

No, the economy would not ‘nose dive’.

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If we had to pay all workers a living wage my lifestyle would nosedive.

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You said the economy would not nose dive

Take 230.000 Taiwanese office and factory workers out of their job, so they can stay home and take care of their parents

Take another 500.000+ workers out of factories, agriculture, offices.. etc.

And the economy would nose dive, No other term for it….

This is low counted as based on 2023 figures, there are projections on 1M migrant workers in 2025…

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Can you demonstrate to me with an image of what the definition of a nosedive would look like?

When someone says ‘nose dive’ in numerous contexts, what does that look like? Visually.

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IMG_4740
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Can you visualise what steep means to you?

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So you are saying that losing around 800,000 workers at a time when the domestic labour market is already shrinking dramatically would be fine.

So much for factory work, so much for construction (at least a fair chunk of it), and maybe let’s let old people just die alone on the street.

Put otherwise, Taiwan’s current industrial and social structure would fall apart without this labour.

Guy

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A lot of the semiconductor supply chain is built on migrant workers. It isn’t just the Indo nursemaids. And there are the illegals, or the legal workers who have illegal side gigs. In a hypothetical where all of this cheap labor just disappears, of course there would be some kind of effect

I mean, Canada does it, too. I’m not sure how the two places compare.

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Now he’s saying there is a lot of space between fine and a nose dive, which is true.

It wouldn’t make Taiwan a poor country, but costs would noticeably go up.and convenience would noticeably go down

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