Yes I’d say a shortage of nearly 300,000 workers is chronic.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2018/02/27/2003688342
I remember a few years ago on local TV news that a college student (engineering) could not find a decent job (even with his degree) and so he went back home to the coast of central/south Taiwan where his father ran an oyster farm. He was soon making over NT$100,000 a month (3x what his classmates were making upon graduation) and a lot less stressful.
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Didn’t the government just come up with some harebrained scheme to have Southeast Asian laborers work on farms on their (almost nonexistent) days off? Isn’t that enough to pick up the slack?
Taiwanese young people go on working holidays just to toil in Oz just because it’s OZ so let Ozzie’s and others intd do working holidays in Taiwan
Possibly SE Asians
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Yes and they even do working holidays working on farms in Oz.
I heard directly from farmers recently that overstays are working in farming areas here . The farmers have no problem with this as they have some younger people to help out with harvesting and planting. It should be regularised local youth don’t want to do farm work.
My point exaxtly
Expect that to increase with recent visa openings for places like Philippines.
As a person in agriculture here, I can say with certainty that here just as much as the US relies on foreign workers for the labor in fields. Many people hire them because of a few reasons.
Prices need to stay competitive.
Taiwanese workers are lazy and inexperienced and/ or uneducated
Only the older generation here actually works physically hard, under 40 local labour your business is doomed. Thank the Lord for vietnameSe labor.
Local governments turn a blind eye intentionally because they know the industry will die without foreign labor, something the office guys up north are so far disconnected from they don’t get theEproblem and spout vote buying ideas about employing the local youth of taiwan, which to almost farmer here is a laughable concept.
Unless the average consumer here is willing to pay probably.literally 2 to 5x the price on raw materials, local labor force cannot cut it. Similar in most countries with a middle.class, we rely on cheap labor. An unpopular topic but a fact
Also land prices here are so absolutely out of reality in regards to farmland, and a lack of any real form or ALR type system, at least not an enforced one that only extremely high priced crops can be grown by someone not doingGsomwthung shady to make the money needed to buy the land. The entire agriculture machine in Taiwan is broken and totally out of reality. The only realistic way for non rich people to make a go is via renting or using government land. And if you dive into that prospect with government land, creating a company etc and you seedDtheir requirements, you soon realise the rules are.made to be broken and ignored as its damn near impossible.to do it without already having a thick wallet. a system with an inevitable failing end…
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We need to seize the means of agricultural production!
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I’m amazed that anybody even bothers with farming here. I looked into it a while back but simply couldn’t make the numbers stack up. Unless you’re growing high-end product for high-end buyers, there’s no way you could cover the cost of capital, nevermind labour and inputs.
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Since most farms are small very little machinery is used as does not make since economically to buy or rent related equipment.
Land prices are too high for much consolidation of farm land into larger farms which could afford machinery.
There’s really no incentive to attract us to come to Taiwan to work on a farm though. People go to Australia for it because even if they likely end up getting paid below minimum it’s considerably more than what they’d be earning back home.
Its better than being a fisherman from a 3rd world country for sure
When I was on working holiday in Au in 2010 I was making between 17$ and 19$ / hour, 8/10 hours a day. Compared to Taiwan, that was a gold mine.
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As I mentioned earlier there are groups of runaways living and working in country towns here . They are exploited by local construction bosses and yes farmers . I say exploited because they don’t have insurance of any kind and their working conditions could be poor.
Still this is what they choose to do because it must still pay more than Vietnam or Indonesia or whatever .
I thinks its not good as well because you don’t know if they have a criminal record or some mental problems either.
Lots of countries subsidize (via varying means) local food growing even when it doesn’t make economic sense because of how important food security is in terms of geopolitics. Taiwan especially - island country that could be pretty easily blockaded by a certain hostile power with a growing navy. If you can grow like 50% of your food needs, at least you have some time. If you grow 0%, well, hope you guys like simplified characters.
ROC govt actually does spend a lot of effort on making sure agriculture continues. It’s a tiny part of the economy, but food security is really important for Taiwan.
Taiwan subsidised lots here but there is little do e on food security. Most is j to high value research and breeding, especially fruit.
If you ever wonder why everyone breaks the law here, read the regulations for opening a company and trying to do new systems, research etc etc. F it, do it u.set the table like everyone here, the government is impeding progress on many levels when it comes to long term food and health securities. Don’t let cheap health care and rice fool you 
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That is a lot, sometimes its good to join the family business or make it better after education
speaking of shortage: I had hard time finding lotto cards, is it local, any people north notice it