That’s true but Taiwan is in a standoff. Bosses trying to squeeze asmuch from workers and workers trying to play the system to do the bare minimum.
Taiwan workers work hard when they are pushed and slack off when not observed. Taking initiative is considered out of most people’s payrange.
Young people have good energy and ideas but after they work for a while they become part of the system
My hope is after the election for there to be N injection of HK entrepreneurs and talent. Stuff needs shaking up
Yeah. You’re right, many people rather say motherboard. Some say systemboard, very few say baseboard. But it’s all the same.
Now that the last large(ish) scale motherboard production in Germany is closing, I’d love to have good non-chinese alternatives where labor conditions are OK. Preferably close to Taipei, so travel is convenient in case of first lot build or troubles that need personal attention.
I’ve heard complaints about bad labor laws and an opaque and often conflicting legal system.
‘Being busy’ does not necessarily mean ‘working hard’ or ‘being productive’.
Depends who you are asking when one says ‘bad labour laws’.
Textiles in Taiwan is booming.
Everyone needs socks (well not everyone but you know what I mean)
I’m sure. From what I’ve seen they are poorly written, opaque, and favor ridiculous claims made by labor.
Yeah, have you ever been to the ‘sock town’?
The hills behind it are actually very picturesque, nice for a hike. 
Yes I have actually. 
When this thread was started I wasn’t even thinking about information technology. I was was thinking textiles, machine parts …
Check this out, although you’ve probably seen it.
Yeah I read it , it was hilarious. My favourite thing in Shetou are stag and rhino beetles and wild starfruit trees, its Taiwan hobbit land.
I don’t know if Taiwanese businesses are bringing factories back to Taiwan. I get the impression they are bringing their capital back, but sending their factories to Vietnam.
American and Dutch companies, such as Google, Facebook and Philips are bringing data centers and R&D centers to Taiwan instead.
As I mentioned already they will probably not open new factories but invest a bit more locally as it becomes more strategically important , yeah production wise they still need low cost places like Vietnam .
I think Giant cut back massively on their China investment.
There have also been some stories of Taiwan laobans applying for govt credit and using it to do investment overseas instead.
Sometimes the importance of infrastructure is forgotten. Some factories relocated out of China to other South East Asian countries but moved back to China again due to infrastructure problems. Even when taking into account the lower wages of Vietnam , compared to China its transportation infrastructure sucks and therefore ends up costing more than China. There are many other factors as well not just cheaper labor (a bit cheaper).
Exactly you have to take a more detailed view. It’s goes back to the idea of specialisation. So we see Taiwan do even better in the areas that it’s already specialised in. This means semiconductor design,manufacture , semiconductor packing and testing, components for mobile phones , IOT related stuff. These are predicted to keep growing . That industry churns out an incredible amount of money.
Probably high end textiles , some chemicals , heavy industry may benefit a bit from the trade wars.
Bikes and motorbikes, probably continue manufacture here and maintaining share as there is a critical mass here.
Automobile biz seems a bit stagnant.
Lacking in local market and critical mass.
Biomedical does pretty well but no glboal brand names. Too fragmented . Pharma and biopharmaceutical doing fine but really focused on local and regional market .
It’s mostly going to depend on semiconductor to drive the big money through the economy. That means the newer money (the earned income not depending on existing riches ) will continue to be concentrated in Neihu and Hsinchu mostly.
Let’s see how Taoyuan area develops that’s a bit of an unknown. Could it do well as an IOT hardware hub? I think so.
Basically there’s good money in chips and IOT but if you aren’t working in those area prospects aren’t amazing. That’s my very rough analysis.
Here’s an okay article on the subject, maybe it was linked to already ?
The growth rates quoted aren’t anything exceptional but they seem to be the best in the mature economies.
It’s industry specific.
Personally I think the new govt needs to really push a few new industries or policies to expand the service sector opportunities and also attract more professional migrants . Also they should allow blue collars to settle here in Taiwan!
The industrial part is already in hand.
They should also urgently push to get a US FTA.
A good article. As for Taoyuen well they have Du Pont Asia R&D HQ, and some others at present.They were going to switch to China but they havs decided to remain put.Things are looking good. I think Trump is making a trade deal because it is election year 2020 (well on Wednesday 2020). I think if he wins the trade war may break out again which is great for Taiwan.
Yep I don’t ever see things going back to the way they were. The US and China are in open competition now.
Taiwan needs to sit in the middle of that.