The thing is Taiwan has no natural resources and doesn’t invent anything so it’s only real advantage is the low cost of its products. Anyone who runs a company here understands that. Raise wages to a fair level comparable to wages in the West and it’s hasta la vista.
Ever heard of technology? Its a thing that creates added value and allows you to make massive tendies as long as you keep the tech lead.
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The falling Cpi is a bad joke .
Anyway these are just averages. Airlines and some hotels were hit badly , that surely accounts for most of the negatives . Those airline workers then took lower paying jobs. Would be more interested to hear about construction or mechanic wages. Very poor article. Also does not mention population decline.
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Yes. I have an engineering degree from Georgia Tech, hold twelve U.S. patents, three Taiwan patents and a dozen or so other country patents. I’ve owned an engineering and manufacturing company here in Taiwan with two Taiwanese partners since 2000. Before that I worked for two years in the R&D department of a Taiwan high tech company. I’m a year into a startup here which designs and manufactures robotics for agriculture. So, yes, I’m familiar with technology, particularly Taiwan technology.
You are only familiar with some parts though.
Just like I’m only familiar with some parts even of my own industry.
Your agri robot startup sounds great though. I have something in particular I want to discuss with you. 
In my first company we do everything from medical to sports, machinery, tooling, appliances, smart meters . . . . Anything that comes in the door that customers want us to do for them.
Yes but technology is much more than that.
For instance biotech is incredibly diverse. Chemistry and biochemistr and living organisms. So are medical analyzers technologies.
And I can imagine the world of electronics is also very diverse.
And software.
In the parts that I worked on in Taiwan I have seen true innovation. The problem is somewhat how they scale or the ambition associated with it. But I have definitely seen very useful innovations and many patents associated with that.
Technology is very rarely driven forward by one company or individual act, its iterative overall with rare big jumps in between .
Android software is based on Linux which was based on UNIX I believe. For Android software to work well you have to have an ecosystem to have been built to support all the hardware and software . Did Google ‘invent’ that? Not really.
Don’t sell yourself short, that’s definitionally invention!
Based on my own experience, Taiwan’s industrial sector is also chock full of invention and innovation. If price were the only factor at play, China would’ve put us out of business decades ago.
I’ve worked with ITRI at various times over the years, Largan, Hon Hai, other high tech leaders. Not to mention two years in an R&D group where I was the only foreign engineer. Their inventions were either riffs on basic innovations from other countries or manufacturing/processional improvements borne of hands on experience that engineers in many other countries no longer have.
I don’t doubt your qualifications; you’re clearly more experienced than I am…
However, basic principles of macroeconomics don’t jive with what you’re saying. As you mentioned, Taiwan isn’t overflowing with natural resources, we don’t have slave wages, we can’t play economies of scale, and we can get bullied out of trade deals on a whim. Further, there’s not a good produced in Taiwan that cannot be made in China or India for cheaper.
Yet, it’s 2021 and we’re still one of the world’s largest economies – and growing.
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Semiconductors and electronics parts aren’t just things you can throw money at and they come out as the best in the world. Money helps, but there’s obviously a core tech expertise here that is very strong in certain areas.
Even if it is in technological improvements on current processes, that is still very valuable.
An example I’m familiar with is how Taiwanese glucose sensor and strip manufacturers were able to reduce the amount of biochemicals reagents and gold they used per strip year by year while maintaining and improving performance. The performance is measured rigorously by publications and equivalence quality schemes, you cannot cheat on those. They have valuable patents and they publish papers reviewing clinical trial results.
Now that is the definition of value. They captured the value in cost savings allowing more people to access the same quality or often improved quality test .
Now one Japanese company I know took a different route. They focused on creating a new enzyme for ten years which finally succeeded in avoiding oxygen interference. However that enzyme is expensive and the test costs more limiting it’s market . The Taiwanese iterated with various tech improvements to try to work around the problem meanwhile making money and providing value to customers.
They are simply different approaches, ALL of which create value for the shareholders and customers.
Is Elon Musk the worlds greatest innovator ? Did he invent the electric car ? Did he invent those cylindrical batteries from Panasonic that still power them (bizarrely ) ? Did his scientists discover the Li ION battery ? Did they invent the wheel ? Did he invent Lidar ? Did he invent the internet and bitcoin?
He’s the richest man in the world because he figured out how to drive cost reduction while maintaining and improving performance, being a great showman , being in the right place at the right time and also raising huge funds on capital markets.
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A good example of where true innovation happens is COVID vaccines. They originated in Britain, Germany, Russia, and the U.S. No doubt mass manufacturing will eventually move to Asia due to lower cost and after a while Asian biotech companies will “own” the manufacturing process due to much greater hands on experience.
Rinse and repeat.
The mRNA vaccines were decades of research in the making .
Many countries have been working on them. The only previous successful one was from an Israeli company for avian SARS. But then Israel didn’t develop it’s own vaccine. 
They did however buy a lot of Pfizers so they learnt something.
Japan is a world leader in stem cell and new gen therapies. Yet it didn’t develop a new vaccine either.
China invented COVID-19 though. Gotta give them that.
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Kavalan is a great example too. They upended the whiskey market through sheer innovation. Their charring technique, their fast aging approach and the tropical fruit blends were completely new and utter genius. The charring technique in particular is spreading throughout the industry at warp speed.
I think @QuaSaShao is just a smart guy who assumes Taiwanese suck just because he is smarter than most, not realizing he is smarter than most people, Taiwanese or otherwise.
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This video is talking about factory managers for finished goods textiles. Taiwan does not currently produce a large amount of finished garments. They do, however, produce fabric and some fabric mills have small garment/finished goods operations as in the video.
So of course factory managers will make more in Vietnam and China because there are more and much larger factories that produce garments so the demand for hiring competent managers is there, not Taiwan. Many of these factories are also Taiwanese owned. Now imagine a glut of these managers coming back to Taiwan. With so many Taiwanese having extensive experience in the garment industry, there’ll be a lot of competition for a low number of jobs.
That’s simple supply and demand.
Myanmar yes. Laos not so much. Low population and landlocked. Try Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia etc.
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Smart Taiwanese leave Taiwan at their earliest opportunity. I’m not here because Taiwan is an innovation hotspot. I’m here because – paradoxically – it’s an innovation vacuum which makes it wide open for self-sufficient innovators from the West.
The niche we occupy is foreign companies come to us with product ideas which require innovation and low cost. They can easily find low cost suppliers in Asia but they’ve bounced around trying to find one that can do the innovation part before they get to us. They can easily find the innovation part in the West but not the low cost. We put the two together and the rest is history.
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Agreed.
Wait, what? 
I take it back. I’m not sure smart people ascribe do to many conspiracies.
I was being facetious.
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My apologies. This is why I keep advocating for a sarcasm font
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