Share your Taiwan Salary Anonymously

Both, I’m in Engineering but I know many that are programming.

When was that? I don’t believe it’s true. Do you have proof?

that was back when Ma was president. It was on every news, 22k starting salary.

Technical writing jobs are plentiful in Taiwan.

Has someone done any kind of work on that chart?

Cleaned it up? Created a pivot table?

22K was way below average in those days for college graduates, let alone PhD’s.
https://kknews.cc/education/q25gm3y.html
https://money.udn.com/money/story/8888/4678930

I didn’t say that was current. I’m saying back when Ma was president 22k was the standard starting salary. That was around 2011/2012

I posted this link above – the lowest in the last 20 years was around 26K:
https://kknews.cc/education/q25gm3y.html

Wasn’t there a make work/fake work program where the government gave a subsidy for firms to hire new grads at 22k?

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Yes and no. The more developed a country’s healthcare, the lower the infant mortality rate and therefore, overtime, the lower the birth rate. Look at Europe or America/Canada of 150 years ago. Families were huge because they were used to having lots of children but also not having all of them survive. They also needed lots of children because kids were free labor for farm work, etc. The older kids were nannies for the younger ones. But then outcomes for babies and young children got better (vaccines for the more deadly stuff, not to mention general hygiene and more knowledgeable health care folks) and families who could plan on it (#birthcontrol) didn’t have loads of children, with the understanding that the few they did have would most likely make it. And people didn’t need free labor (not living on farms anymore), so children became a financial burden instead of investment. Yes, cost of living has skyrocketed. Raising a child means covering all sorts of expenses that never would have been considered 40 years ago. Again, people who can afford to/have the luxury of birth control and access to abortion likely choose not have kids before they’re ready.

But there are low birthrates in literally every developed nation on the planet. Certainly, the high cost of living has something to do with it for some. But who does, on average, have loads of kids? Poor people and religious nutters. You don’t see über wealthy families having five kids. They have one or two so they have someone to pass their wealth onto. They’re not turned off by the cost of raising tiny humans.

I’m not saying cost of living has nothing to do with low birthrates in Taiwan. No one can raise a child on 33k/month. I might be able to raise myself on that, but I don’t have to pay for childcare, which can easily reach 30k/month. Tbh, most parents I know here are parents on accident— they didn’t want children but they weren’t careful and now they have them. Most people are busy pursuing what they want to and don’t have time for kids.

TLDR: certainly the low wages don’t help, but they aren’t the only factor in the low birth rate either.

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Yes there was.

Yea I don’t know why would anyone work part time at that wage either. Unless it was part time.

I see many problems in Taiwan so very similar to Japan. A study in Japan suggests the reason of low birthrate being 晩婚 and 未婚, late marriage and non marriage- you don’t get married at all.

You get married late, naturally you have less children. You don’t get married- well, there are a lot of single mothers (and maybe some single fathers), but pressure on them bigger. The study also tells you why people don’t get married until late. The biggest reason for age 25-34 is “can’t find a match.” As you get older, you know things better, have some income, have your own way of life, so you get picky. It makes sence to me.

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Form what I know it’s not to hire new grads at 22k, but for the companies to apply for reimbursement that worth 22k. And for some obvious reasons the laobans decided that all new grads only worth 22k.

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What also gets me is that you don’t get raises in Taiwan unless the government forces it.

Means if you’re hired at 22k you will always be at 22k as long as you stay with that job/position. You will not get any raise. Maybe bonus could be higher if your company does well but laobans being what they are will always find any excuse to not give it. The only way to jump from 22k to 30k, 40k, 50k, etc. is to quit, find a better job using your experience, etc… This culture does not encourage loyalty at all, unlike Japan (where if you quit it’s like betrayal, and it looks extremely bad on you).

Big companies like TSMC will have much more competitive annual raise and all that, but it’s like getting a govt job, tests, exams, 300:1 applicant to job ratio, etc… Good companies are like flies attracted to light here.

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if it is any comfort to you, it’s like this all over the world. apart from gov jobs, I dont know of any place where you get raises for just coming to work and doing the same job from day 1 till you retire.

Walmart gave you yearly raises until you hit around 15 dollars an hour. It’s something like 20 cents a year for an average review, and 60 cents for a good review. They actually give pretty decent quarterly bonuses though, something like 250 all the way up to 500 per quarter (500 is max) depending on the store’s reviews. They do have decent health coverage though, for America (NHI is like 10,000 times better than this). But yea, like most Americans, if you get sick, you’re screwed. But if you worked overtime (not common at Walmart but can happen right before back to school, Halloween, Black Fridays, etc.) it’s actually better because you got overtime.

Carrefour, Watsons, etc. does not do any of that. In fact if you work 60hrs a week as an hourly you got 150 an hour. You do not get time and a half overtime pay.

I’d say that have something to do with colonization… and the education which isn’t educating but rather brainwashing and encouraging submision. You see, people don’t fight for it. I am enrolled in this class where students believes it’s their own job to understand everything but not the teachers job to help you to. People worship authority here. Parents and laobans and government and teachers are always right. If laobans say you only worth 22k then that is it. Some don’t even try to find a new job. Maybe that’s why the laobans could keep on maintain their business with low salary. they don’t need to worry about employees leaving. The submissive side here is just killing me… not complying is one thing, but it’s so painful to watch…

That depends if you include inflation. I don’t think Taiwanese salaries increase with inflation, whereas they do in many other countries even if you do the same thing day in and day out without putting in anything extra.

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American jobs?