I think those specific amendments are related to Taiwan changing the age of adulthood from 20 to 18 which will take effect on January 1, 2023.
Amendments to the Act are related to the likes of dependent visas.
The amended Articles 7 and 14-17 are promulgated by President Order Hua-Tsung (1)-Yi-Tzu No. 11000006231 on Jan. 27, 2021; the effective date shall be set by the Executive Yuan.
The amendment was set to be effective since Jan. 1, 2023 by the Executive Yuan Order Yuan-Tai-Jiao-Zi No. 1100004559 on Feb. 23, 2021.
“NDC will cooperate with related ministries to complete relevant regulations and measures as soon as possible, and report to the Executive Yuan for designating the implementation date, so foreign professionals and their relatives can apply this Act before long.”
So, as you’ll remember the New Economic Immigration Bill was not proposed during the last session of the legislature. Instead several of its elements were inserted into a significant amendment to the Foreign Talent Act, which did pass.
However, at least for one legislator, the New Economic Immigration Act is not dead. Taiwan People’s Party legislator Chiu Chen-Yuan was in the news this week talking about proposing it again:
The Executive Yuan announced that the amendments to the Law on the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals promulgated on July 7, 2021 will become effective on October 25, 2021
Also the updated version of the law is available in English:
And all the Goldies waiting to know whether the (in)famous 6-month extension will work to apply for an APRC, considering that we will be eligible basically from the day after the 3-year Gold Card expires
It’s great that this passed, but the issue still remains that Taiwan has few industries that actually hire foreigners, outside of specific engineering teams and foreign package expats. A lot of industries wouldn’t appreciate a foreigner in their ranks. For example, finding a foreigner working in the banking or insurance sector would be rarer than hens teeth.
That makes sense, not all professions are truly “universal”, they require language proficiency and local certification. My hunch is that a TW CPA will not be able to do someone’s taxes in France without speaking French or knowing the local rules and regulations.
While it is true that one needs language proficiency, Japan and HK are examples of places where industry does hire foreigners in almost every industry, assuming you know Japanese or Cantonese. You can be proficient in Mandarin here but industry still won’t give you a job. Taiwan is still closed off in this aspect as most industries doesn’t really see much need for foreigners. Korea is another country that never saw the need for foreign talent either.
This will be seen in the numbers because while the government makes it easy to come in, foreigners won’t be beating down the door to come here because of the roadblocks.
maybe not white westerners, but plenty of eligible overseas chinese might want to come here.
but I agree, the Visa is not the hurdle, the shitty pay and lack of social benefits will prevent first world people from coming.
Some interesting details in this Chinese language piece about how Taiwan’s National Development Council (the guys that seem to formulate policy in the Tsai administration) wants to ramp up the numbers of foreign professionals to 100,000 by 2030.
Currently there are about 43,000 general A(P)RC holders in Taiwan not counting international students; around 5000 special professionals (Gold Card holders and the like); and only a few hundred senior professionals (Plum Blossom Card holders and the like). Barriers to residency keep getting liberalized, which is great, but I think (as the article suggests) it’s also reasonable to be skeptical about whether this target of 100,000 can be reached—especially, I would add, if they keep blocking the path of migrant workers who could helpfully contribute to our lives here.
For non-Chinese literate forumosans, google translate does a decent job to translate it into the language of your choice.
The fact I think liberalization of immigration is nice, or the fact that their targeted numbers are going to be tough to reach, or the fact that almost all migrant workers in Taiwan are blocked from gaining residence status?
