Western White-Collar Workers Pouring into Hong Kong

Discussion Open Forum
1

Honkers has apparently been luring record numbers of foreign white-collar workers, particularly Brits and Americans. According to its Immigration Department, the number of work visas issued to Americans almost doubled last year, up by 96%, while those issued to Brits increased by 45%. Both were at record highs.

Commenting on this trend, one head hunter said that: "In certain areas there are acute skills shortages, and in these cases some firms are considering international talent where the domestic talent pool is unable to keep up with demand.”

However, in the words of a 20-year British resident: "While it still has a lot going for it the downside has increased more than the upside. Hong Kong has increasingly bad air pollution, not enough international schools while property prices are exorbitant for most families.”

He then added that: ““I’ve been here too long to think about moving but younger expats have the options of Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing to choose from these days.” Funny he didn’t include Taipei or Taiwan in that list.

So, does Hong Kong have more to offer Western job-seekers than Taiwan these days? Would any of you be interested in moving there if you found a good job opening?

Should Taiwan be doing more and better to compete with Hong Kong in attracting international talent? Could it have realistic hopes of competing? What could it offer to make itself more attractive than Hong Kong?

2

I think the Taiwan government is probably asking the very same questions. Maybe one day the officials in charge of steering economic development will realize that it’s going to need a lot more than Chinglish slogans, cheap noodles and slightly relaxed APRC requirements to attract foreign professionals to come here.

Most of the international companies that had a regional HQ in Taiwan have relocated elsewhere (particularly to Shanghai). Taiwanese companies have been actively shedding Western professionals wherever they can (EVA and CAL are great examples, having booted out almost all their foreign pilots over the last decade).

Really, does Taiwan have anything to offer anymore? Living standards are lower than most of its Asian counterparts, while job opportunities grow ever more scarce.

3

It’s like comparing apples and oranges. The folks that move to HK overwhelmingly work in the financial industry. People are moving there on the back of the boom in financing related to China in particular but also for the whole region of Asia.
If you worked in electronics you would be better off in Shenzhen or Chengdu or Taiwan. If you were a diplomat you would probably be in Beijing. Same for technology and scientific industry. If you are retail you could be based anywhere. Car manufacturing in the North of China.

There are all diverse and spread out but it’s easy to see the concentration of financial types in Singapore and HK.

That said it’s a pity there are less rather than more foreign professionals here these days. Every country can benefit from seeing different ways of doing things, sometimes better ways!

It must be noted that huge numbers of Taiwanese professionals have also left for better opportunities and pay. In the meantime we have investment concentrated in property here now, people never learn.

4

Yes, it is hard to see what advantages taiwan has that can be handily promoted. Most of the advantages it once had seem to have disappeared. Chinese cities are now about as safe as Taipei on average, the are often cleaner, they have better public transport, often are quieter (as they ban scooters), have better shopping, and for the professional, much better high end neighborhoods. Food safety is an issue in China but as the scandals over plasticizers and other substances has shown, Taiwan is no where near as safe as we used to imagine.

There is also the lack of an international mindset in local businesses that makes integrating westerns very difficult.

Taiwan is free and appealing in this way, but for the average expat (not long term settler) this is not much of an issue.

5

Btw, Omni, can I make the reasonable guess that work is slowing down a bit given the amount of time you currently spend on Fcom? :wink:

6

Well, I have successfully cut a good chunk out of the workload. But I’ve also had a higher-than-usual amount of tedious stuff that has necessitated frequent breaks on this site to clear the fog from my brain. And sometimes, I’m pained to admit, I have lingered here posting when I really should have been getting on with work.

7

[quote=“Mucha Man”]Yes, it is hard to see what advantages taiwan has that can be handily promoted. Most of the advantages it once had seem to have disappeared. Chinese cities are now about as safe as Taipei on average, the are often cleaner, they have better public transport, often are quieter (as they ban scooters), have better shopping, and for the professional, much better high end neighborhoods. Food safety is an issue in China but as the scandals over plasticizers and other substances has shown, Taiwan is no where near as safe as we used to imagine.

There is also the lack of an international mindset in local businesses that makes integrating westerns very difficult.

Taiwan is free and appealing in this way, but for the average expat (not long term settler) this is not much of an issue.[/quote]

As long as you stick to the familiar and the endangered and other wildlife it 's probably OK … :roflmao:

8

I believe there are two very clear and obvious explanations as to why Taipei is not on the list:

  1. English. It is the standard language in Singapore, nearly equal to Cantonese in Hong Kong, and though it is not a Shanghai standard, it is spoken by nearly everyone and regularly in businesses. Here if you speak English exclusively, prepare to look and feel like an a-hole. Without solid Chinese your job growth has a ridiculously low ceiling. So you have to either be a teacher, or get one of the handfuls of crap jobs for nearly the same money as teaching with no real future while you study study study the language. Which leads me to…

  2. Wages. They are an embarrassment here. You are expected to go above and beyond the realm of your position, work long hours, and what you make for a white collar job is still laughable by western standards. In many cases, the move to the far east is meant to provide an upgrade to one’s standard of living, especially with American wages stagnant. Or it is at least supposed to be a salary match with more job security, since American jobs are disappearing. In Taipei, however, even as a white collar professional, you’ll sweating it by the end of the month begging for payday… especially if, god forbid, you had a few nice meals or even (gasp) drinks a couple of times other than Taiwan beer on your sofa. Buying a car? International travel? Large living space? Things of the past.

Of course you can carve out a nice life here if you have minimal needs. But the average white collar professional has higher expectations than the roof over a businessperson’s head in Taipei.

9

Agree, a couple days before payday it gets tricky despite both of us having jobs (55k plus 28k, before tax). We rarely eat in good places and buy stuff but there never seems to be money left for savings. Guess next year it’s time to ask for more money, move on to a new company or go overseas… Taiwan is cheaper but it ain’t cheap.

10

[quote=“monkey”]Most of the international companies that had a regional HQ in Taiwan have relocated elsewhere (particularly to Shanghai). Taiwanese companies have been actively shedding Western professionals wherever they can (EVA and CAL are great examples, having booted out almost all their foreign pilots over the last decade).

Really, does Taiwan have anything to offer anymore? Living standards are lower than most of its Asian counterparts, while job opportunities grow ever more scarce.[/quote]
So much for Taiwan’s “Asia-Pacific Regional Operations Center” dream…

11

[quote=“Omniloquacious”]Honkers has apparently been luring record numbers of foreign white-collar workers, particularly Brits and Americans. According to its Immigration Department, the number of work visas issued to Americans almost doubled last year, up by 96%, while those issued to Brits increased by 45%. Both were at record highs.

Commenting on this trend, one head hunter said that: "In certain areas there are acute skills shortages, and in these cases some firms are considering international talent where the domestic talent pool is unable to keep up with demand.”

However, in the words of a 20-year British resident: "While it still has a lot going for it the downside has increased more than the upside. Hong Kong has increasingly bad air pollution, not enough international schools while property prices are exorbitant for most families.”

He then added that: ““I’ve been here too long to think about moving but younger expats have the options of Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing to choose from these days.” Funny he didn’t include Taipei or Taiwan in that list.

So, does Hong Kong have more to offer Western job-seekers than Taiwan these days? Would any of you be interested in moving there if you found a good job opening?

Should Taiwan be doing more and better to compete with Hong Kong in attracting international talent? Could it have realistic hopes of competing? What could it offer to make itself more attractive than Hong Kong?[/quote]

Taiwan cannot ever compete with Singapore and Hong Kong. Why do people keep bringing this shit up, they aren’t even in the same stratosphere, and they don’t even serve the same functions to the global economy.

12

You try telling that to Taiwan’s government planners. Under both KMT and DPP administrations, they’ve been endeavouring to do exactly that for the best part of the last two decades.

For now, however, the goal of establishing Taiwan as a financial services center to rival Hong Kong and Singapore has largely been dropped. It has apparently been accepted that there’s no hope of wrestling Taiwan’s primitive banking industry into internationally competitive shape within at least the near future. Instead, the government is focusing instead on establishing Taiwan as a fund-raising center for innovative and high-tech companies, trying to induce attractive foreign companies to issue securities in Taiwan to tap into the abundance of capital available here.

Also, this thread is about the ability to attract high-quality foreign talent, not necessarily the ability to attract foreign professionals and executives in the same industries.

13

You try telling that to Taiwan’s government planners. Under both KMT and DPP administrations, they’ve been endeavouring to do exactly that for the best part of the last two decades.

For now, however, the goal of establishing Taiwan as a financial services center to rival Hong Kong and Singapore has largely been dropped. It has apparently been accepted that there’s no hope of wrestling Taiwan’s primitive banking industry into internationally competitive shape within at least the near future. Instead, the government is focusing instead on establishing Taiwan as a fund-raising center for innovative and high-tech companies, trying to induce attractive foreign companies to issue securities in Taiwan to tap into the abundance of capital available here.

Also, this thread is about the ability to attract high-quality foreign talent, not necessarily the ability to attract foreign professionals and executives in the same industries.[/quote]

Omni, as an insider, just how realistic do you think are the people pushing this about the challenges? Vast changes need to be made to Taiwan’s educational, legal, and business cultures, to say nothing of the changes that need to be done to make Taipei comparable in living standards to the great cities of Asia? A country that can’t achieve good results in two decades just doesn’t seem likely to ever get it.

14

They can’t hold onto their own professionals let alone foreign ones. Plus a few things haven’t been mentioned here

People follow the money, right now the money is not in Taiwan, that’s why a lot of foreign professionals moved to China just like the locals.
The money concentrates and flows through Singapore/HK, due to their open market systems and low tax regimes. Basically they are cities that have become countries and due to their small size and lack of established agriculture/manufacturing/hinterland industry they are easier to control and change direction. They are also authoritarian regimes with only a veneer of democracy. I can’t take away from their well thought out policies though, especially Singapore.

It also has to be said that foreign professionals are , by and large, working for multinational or foreign companies. In general they would not be attracted, nor qualified or willing, to work for local companies in HK or Singapore.

Now if you want to compare Taipei and Singapore or Taipei and Hong Kong that makes a bit more sense. But again Taipei needs to follow the national structure, not a citystate structure. It also has strong and established local companies that benefit from the current regime.

Taipei actually has some advantages compared to Singapore and Taipei, namely cost and location. But there are many competitors for foreign investment and Chinese cities and provinces actively promote investment now mainly with the lure of the massive Chinese market and still low labour costs, although rising very rapidly in Shanghai.

It must be said Taiwan is a good base for running an Asian service centre. You can fly in and out directly to most Asian cities from Taoyuan/Taipei and even Taichung has a lot of direct flights to China now (pity about the airport…story for another time). Infrastructure is good, and costs are much lower than HK/Singapore. Taiwan is obviously a good choice for dealing with Chinese/Japan/Korean/Vietnam market.
Singapore would be a bit better for South Asia market. But if you are going to choose anywhere that has a good location for servicing the Asian market Taiwan is in a pretty sweet spot flying wise. Taiwan also has a pool of good Mandarin speakers and that should be an advantage as the service sector grows. Wages are relatively low in Taiwan.

But taxes are high on income here compared to Singapore/HK, so that discourages the higher earners moving here. And then the families usually prefer a place like Singapore which is really well setup for people not used to Asia.

How to get FDI to flow into Taiwan (and I mean real FDI, not the Taiwanese using Virgin Island companies to invest ‘washed’ money back here)? That’s a difficult question. The government have damaged the home market by promoting exports and income inequality over child friendly and labour friendly policies. The ECFA doesn’t seem to have made any difference at all in getting investment into Taiwan, a big failure in that regard. They have been too slow to push for trade agreements with other countries. They are behind the curve.

I think the biggest hope would be to attract more Japanese companies to invest here, and that is happening I believe. In Taichung the largest group of expats by far are not Germans or Americans but Koreans and Japanese. Maybe their best hope, and I say this with a bit of a sad reservation, is to pick up the crumbs from the Koreans and Japanese by virtue of being cheaper than them.

15

Funny you mention this; below is an exert from yesterdays Taipei Times. Apparently Taiwan ranks 2nd lowest in THE WORLD for Foreign Direct Investment. Who do you think they beat? North Korea?

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/07/11/2003537451

When I go to international conferences I get asked “Are you #1 in your market?” and I say "maybe, but you have to remember being #1 in Taiwan is a bit like getting gold at the Special Olympics.

16

There is, indeed, so much to be done, and there are so many institutional, cultural and other barriers that will take such a gargantuan effort to fix, that it’s hard to be highly optimistic, no matter what effort is made by those at the top. However, there are some areas where I think there’s room for guarded optimism.

I’d say that Taiwan has a good chance of attracting multinationals, especially Japanese companies, to set up bases here for certain parts of their Greater China operations. But the government still needs to do much more to make it easier for companies to bring in whatever staff they need from elsewhere in the world when they can’t find locals with appropriate skills and experience.

In certain areas, the government has actually made substantial progress in improving the investment and business environment in the last few years. In particular, in areas covered by the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey, it has made great strides in cutting red tape and paring away administrative procedures. This has enabled it to leap 36 places from 61st to 25th in the world in the past three years – no mean achievement.

The government has placed very high emphasis on raising Taiwan’s EoDB ranking, making it a top-priority policy goal. With another big batch of reforms carried out in the first half of this year, I expect to see it climb a few more places when the next report is released this autumn. If employment of foreign staff was covered by the World Bank survey, you can bet there’d be rapid progress in this area too.

17

I think and I don’t mean to piss on the party but you’d have to be insane or merely bent to invest in Taiwan. The place is a mess. If anyone has actually been to any of the other countries mentioned in this discussion, no more needs to be said.

For the others, a see it with your own eyes historical run down: Taiwan was merely used by international finance when it went crazy in the late 80’s early 90’s. That 20 years is all its ever going to get. It was a real-estate bubble. Now all the property has gone, and the credit it gets is (a) gone overseas to the banks and the bankers (b) currently being drawn out on property (i.e. debt) based liquidity. Those who got on in time are simply driving up the cost of living and destroying their country’s economic and civil life while they live off all the interest, corruption and credit they can get.

It is a rudderless ship, or worse. I find it hard to believe their was ever any decent leadership on this island except maybe the Japanese. The one decent thing that happened was when, long ago, farmers were given the right to buy their land at reasonable prices.

18

I think, and I don’t mean to piss on the party, you’d have to be insane or merely bent to invest in Taiwan. The place is a mess. If anyone has actually been to any of the other countries mentioned in this discussion, no more needs be said.

For the others, a see-it-with-your-own-eyes historical recap: Taiwan was merely used by international finance after the deregulation of the financial markets in the 80’s and 90’s. That 20 years is all its ever going to get. It was, essentially, a credit bubble. Now all the property has gone, and the credit it services is (a) mainly gone overseas to the banks and the bankers (b) currently being eked out of property (i.e. debt) based liquidity and spent on the stuff that credit easily buys (cars, holidays, etc, not on investments that create jobs). Those who got on in time are simply driving up the cost of living and destroying their country’s economic and civil life while they live off all the interest, corruption and credit they can get.

It is a rudderless ship, or worse. I find it hard to believe their was ever any decent leadership on this island except maybe the Japanese. The one decent thing that happened was when, long ago, farmers were given the right to buy their land at reasonable prices.

The other places mentioned have developed the culture and enforce the laws and have great infrastructure which they managed to secure for themselves during their credit booms. Taiwan has failed to do the same and it makes good sense to pay more taxes (etc) to do business elsewhere.

19

Taiwan is still a good place to do business, mainly due to the people here who do have a great work ethic overall and low costs. Well there is also a deep pool of skilled and experienced workers at affordable prices. So I don’t get the ‘you would be crazy to invest in Taiwan’ bit. Low taxes and efficient and reliable government services make a big difference too.

Our customers in China constantly have issues with getting shipments through customs. The working attitude can also be different there.

Hong Kong is extremely expensive and Seoul is also not cheap either. Singapore can also be outrageous although they have a good public housing program. They all have asset bubbles…really not much different from each other in that regard.

20

More so than Thailand, which gets far more FDI?

Let’s see: foreigners can’t own a business, Thais must own a minimum of 51% (controlling majority). Lese majeste’ law is sometimes used to target foreigners over the most innocuous of offhand remarks, putting them in prison for years. Courts are completely corrupt; bringing a lawsuit is futile. Foreigners who are effective in fighting any sort of major legal dispute all too often get shot to death by someone driving past on a motorcycle.

Hmmm. And you say Taiwan is even more messed up than Thailand?