I would argue that plenty of Taiwanese workers have talent but are not used to their utmost potential by short-sighted employers. Everyone wants a Taida engineering student – or even better, one who was educated abroad – but all he ends up doing is sitting in a cubicle like everyone else and doing the same menial work like everyone else.
You can’t depend on employers growing a conscience and training employees for the long term… all they care about is profit that they can see. At some point once you have enough skill and experience you need to move on, which is probably why Taiwanese switch jobs so much.
Actually, they quit to have some time off or to migrate to better paying jobs. No vacation and no appreciation are the main causes.
True though that they are profit motivated and it is not their responsibility to train their employees. But it i also true that most employers are used to cronysm, wished they could pay China salaries and do try to do so, and would rather go on power trips than improve their productivity/efficiency/competitiveness. It is the problem of living in a protected bubble, both at a personal level and at a business level: they cannot survive outside the bubble.
It’s hardly unique to Taiwan. Employers in the US would love to pay China salaries too but various factors including laws and unions prevent them from doing so. Therefore they move the jobs overseas where conditions like that doesn’t exist so they can pay China salaries. The result is increased unemployment and rising costs of living.
The only way to make real money is to be your own boss, because when you work for a company they’re always going to demand far more work than they are willing to pay for. It’s the same Wal-mart syndrome created by Wal-Mart themselves…
You have a point Luthiers, but I think the big difference is, a few major companies aside, Taiwanese corporations don’t tend to strive for innovation. Look at HTC’s flagship phones or any Acer computer: their selling point is price, not features, and that (plus poor marketing) is why they are losing out to Samsung.
Not everyone are able to strive for innovation, especially when the past 100 years of the culture never teaches innovation. Only a few major American companies innovate despite what many of them say. All the recent stuff coming out of Hollywood are just copies or remake of classic movies… they ran out of stuff to innovate. Yea Taiwanese companies tend to compete based on price but I guess it comes with a “I am not good enough so lets be cheaper” attitude. However honestly as far as computer products goes, who wants to spend big bucks on them when they are obsolete as soon as they are made? Apple might be an exception but as soon as Steve Jobs died their product went down the shithole too (like releasing iphones that are only marginally better than the last)
Cheap money is also a driving force in the increase in university tuition in the United States. It is not competition.
Yep you can get too much of a good thing. Of course it’s not so cheap that we don’t have to pay it all back with interest in the end!
So, apparently, the increase in HSR ticket price would be approximately 980 nts -still under discussion- but no earlier than September.
According to today’s China Times, the increase will be nowhere near that high. And they say it won’t happen “before the end of September.”
My translation of the first paragraph:
HSR tickets to rise for first time in 6 years
Ticket prices for the High Speed Rail are set to rise by almost 9.5% after the Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved a new fare standard for the line on Tuesday. The new standard, the first price hike the HSR has seen since it opened in January of 2007, will increase the current fee standard, NT$3.655 per km traveled, up to NT$4.009 per km. The increase means a ride from Taipei to Zuoying in standard seating will go from the current NT$1,490 up to NT$1,632; for round-trip commuters, that’s a total increase of NT$284.
http://money.chinatimes.com/news/news-content.aspx?id=20130403000838&cid=1210
I don’t know, that sounds pretty OK to me. Prices are going to have to go up sooner or later, and the number of people who actually go Taipei-Zuoying on a daily basis is nowhere near great enough to make this that big of a deal in my opinion.
A 10% hike is quite big, but you are right in that wont really dent the pockets of businesses or the better off. It’s still a reasonable price compared to similar systems overseas.
If you can get some type of discount on early bookings it might ease the pain and I think they do this.
you don’t have to take the HSR if you find it to be too expensive. There are cheaper (but slower) alternatives if you aren’t in a hurry to get there.
The thing is, once you take the HSR, you can’t go back 
. Everything takes forever then except for flying!
ha … it’s true. I take the HSR at every possible opportunity because it’s just fun. Yeah, I know, that sad and pathetic.
All the fun of an airplane without the pat downs. Assuming you don’t consider those part of the fun.
ha … it’s true. I take the HSR at every possible opportunity because it’s just fun. Yeah, I know, that sad and pathetic.[/quote]
I take it a lot for work and then get a taxi to meeting places, it’s sure beats driving everywhere. For family stuff it’s getting to be too expensive so back to highway driving 
.
[quote=“Icon”]I think we need a thread for updates:
-
Post Office: starting tomorrow, we will see a price increase in packing boxes, shipping charges, PO box fees, etc.
-
Transportation: buses, railways and HSR: still under discussion how much, but all train fares, probably even MRT, will go up from mid July on.
You’re welcome.[/quote]
Just to touch on this. Can I by packing boxes at the PO?
Yes, but can’t remember how big.
Noticed a new wave of price hikes. heck, 5 more nts in each chicken filet at 2Pecks! Seriously, this is getting more visible:
[quote]The continued rise in commodity prices over the past years has taken a toll on most Taiwanese’s quality of life, but now it could also affect the nutritional status of young children as many school meal providers are tempted to increase lunch prices or reduce portion sizes to stay afloat.
…
Many school meal providers have complained that it is too difficult to maintain the current price without sacrificing the quality of their foods. After weighing the pros and cons, most parents whose children are studying in the 28 schools said they supported a minor price hike,” Department of Education Director Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said.
…
A school principal in the city, who requested anonymity, said price increases have always been a sensitive issue, particularly in an election year, and that no school would dare to approve one without the city government’s consent.
…
Taipei City Boxed Food Association Director-General Wang Pai-ching (王派清), who is also the owner of a food service company, said his company used to make NT$3 to NT$4 from providing a meal to a student, but these days it only makes NT$2.
“No price hike has been made to school lunch in the city for the past decade. If the price freeze continues, most meal providers will be forced to be run at a loss,” Wang said.
[/quote]
Taipei Times
This happened to the printing industry… priced out, sold out to China. But price hikes run into a wall:
[quote]Many underprivileged children and families in the nation are malnourished, and often have NT$100 (US$3.30) or less to spend on a family evening dinner, according to a survey released by the Children Welfare League Foundation yesterday.
“Dinner for children of these families is often just rice and one helping of green vegetables. Some of them bring home leftovers from their school lunch for supper,” the foundation’s chief executive director Chen Li-ju (陳麗如) said.
“The survey showed that most of these children are malnourished. More than 90 percent of these families have no meat, fish, eggs or other source of protein for supper. More than one-third of these parents suffer from debilitating illness and about one-in-five have children suffering from physical or mental disability,” she said.
…
The result showed that more than 52.8 percent of families in need have a income that falls below the government’s minimum monthly wage of NT$19,047 and 63.1 percent have insufficient income to cover their regular monthly living expenses.
A total of 92.5 percent of the families sometimes have to borrow money to feed themselves, while 75.8 percent said they had to borrow money to raise their children, it showed.
The survey also showed that 60.4 percent of the parents said they have no time to look after their children because they have to work, while 57.6 percent have no time to speak to their children.
[/quote]
Taipei Times
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Icon”]I think we need a thread for updates:
-
Post Office: starting tomorrow, we will see a price increase in packing boxes, shipping charges, PO box fees, etc.
-
Transportation: buses, railways and HSR: still under discussion how much, but all train fares, probably even MRT, will go up from mid July on.
You’re welcome.[/quote]
Just to touch on this. Can I by packing boxes at the PO?[/quote]
Slower than the HSR though.