This one comes up time and again. The overtime culture is common all over East Asia, it’s particularly bad in Taiwan though because the base pay has stagnated so much along with lack of public holidays. The average Korean works about the same hours but has twice the pay. Not great either given high cost of living. The average Japanese has 2-4 times the pay and at least three times more public holidays. The public holidays help a lot in that regard.
The usual line from the bosses in Taiwan is ‘nuli’ or everybody striving together, of course the owner or the top managers gets the real income (stock and dividends/high salaries/big bonuses) so of course they are willing to put in longer hours.
Contrary to DDs assertions overtime is fairly rare in many countries. When it happens it’s usually an hour here or there or maybe half an hour everyday and finish early or on the dot on Friday, not 3 hours extra everyday with a 7pm meeting on Fridays (that’s a Taiwan special that one).
It has very negative effects on social and family development as people do not have time for hobbies or time to look after their kids properly.
I don’t know ANY office in Taiwan that would accept you to come in at 10am everyday without getting fined. Now there are times managers come in late and work late and there are exceptions for Mondays it seems but for the rank and file you better be at work at 9:00Am or you risk getting hours of pay docked.
I don’t know if this necessarily applies to Taiwan. A company might not want to have to pay the severance for letting someone go, or deal with any Internet backlash against the company if it starts getting a reputation for letting people go all of the time.
What a load of tripe.
I dare say that most locals consider unpaid part of the ordeal by fire unto which they must pass.
My only concern is how readily they accept such a shite situation, most especially those that work for a foreign company, local branch.
They swallow such crap in the vain hope that they might get recognised. I suppose that happens the world over, but one would hope that at least some part of the workforce will readily recognize when they are being played.
Just go home on time, do not care what they think about you. I go home on time, I want to have a balanced life. If they do not understand that, well it’s their problem.
If they want to sit in office till late evening, then be my guest. I only stay if there if there is some very urgent thing I need to solve right now, which is very rare. Plan your time, plan your work and you can always finish in time. Don’t stay in office and fall trap for the messed up way of thinking here….
