Ofc nationality matter or put it in right way, is all about where person grows up and with what values.
Germans exploit workers less, generally people are afraid of state and are raises with ideas rules have to be respected. Working unions are super strong, especially in traditional industries. They come before shareholders, which are often different state comapnies anyway. As well we prefer to have free time, so not many want to stay in job longer, to make more money and exploit workers. This is reason our net wealth is not huge, cause of life balance mentality. We work enough to get by. Many immigrants have different values and they are notoriously well known to exploit, cheat their people. Inspections can’t keep up with them. They always create new companies in different eu countries.
Another reason for low wealth are cost are high, cause there are terrible politics with real estate sector and energy. Come to Germany for life balance, but forget about big money.
Australia offers more opportunities. So does USA.
It came to my mind now sister in law did one year in Australia. Back then farm salary in Australia was higher than her office job in Taiwan. But as time goes on she made progress, become professional, changed dozen jobs in Taiwan. Most Taiwanese can not climb career ladder abroad as they can home. Language, culture. My spouse does it better in Germany, here einvoroment is more adjusted to families. Spouse is paid less than her sister, but does way less hours, and have way more holidays. And salary comes with bunch of welfare support too. Is all relative and hard to compare.
It’s definitely the work culture and whole attitude that matters that is important.
Any workplace in any country can be exploitive but the rules (written and unwritten), laws and values determine how much exploitation goes on and to what extent
In Taiwan it’s socially acceptable for bosses to under-declare income to avoid paying pensions. This wouldn’t fly in Australia. It does happen sometimes but people don’t accept it as another day at the office.
In the USA the low minimum wage and tip culture encourage exploitation.
Australia has weak unions these days but we have strong laws and the government acts as a union by mandating conditions for different industries. And it does a decent job of making sure the laws are followed. Obviously exploitation still happens but less and it’s isn’t socially acceptable.
When I grew up, spend summers in Hawaii. I though certain parts of the USA were more so, but of course in general. Locals in Hawaii thought Mainlanders from certain areas the East Coast (esp. NYC haha) where the most arrograt, and Aussies fun their accent (I was in Hawaii and Los Angeles in December saw TV ads promoting Aussie travel poking fun at their accent), in contrast in Hawaii at a local takeway, a person from New York could not say items on a local plate lunch correctly (Asian-Hawaiian fusion), I was behind them and thought oh,he is not local but the guy was not happy the lady at the counter did not understand him, telling his friend this is not how we say it in NYC (doubtful they sell it there but I do not know). People from New York has this rap, but of course not all are like that, and I think some Aussies are but I find most to be humble.
I also know many people do not like California, but I found people from there to be nice.
Is also socially acceptable not to invest in kids in Taiwan. Whoever they have elections in Taiwan is mostly about pleasing, giving face to elders. Going to temples, do firework. Our major ( here in Germany) promised to increase public kindergarten places for 30 % and he did. With building new kindergartens. When summer hours at subsequent kindergarten were charged more, parents wanted to go on court. We made a deal to get one month free in October instead. Cost of full time care kindergarten is like 200 euros monthly they are afraid to raise up premium. He might lose elections doing this. You don’t want to piss off parents
If the German government does not conduct inspections, or conducts inspections but doesn’t actually look deeply into the workplace (basically walks in, signs a paper, then walks out), would the average German employer still follow rules? What consequence do they face should they not follow rules and are found out? How easy is it for workers to report abuse? Are they going to lose their job and be permanently unemployed if they decide to report (because employers all keep a list of “bad workers” among them).
Owners of small companies can lose rights to open, run companies for few years as well penalties from few thousands to few 10 000 euros. Depends on city and region too. Often government is slow. Germany has become a beucratic mess
What’s to stop owners of the small company to tell his cousin to open a company in his name and then run that company? China does it all the time. Mess up and they close up shop, change names, and reopen like nothing happened. And a lot of digging has to be done to find any connections at all.
Or bankroll someone else to open their company and run that company like a puppet.
This is interesting. Excluding English teachers, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a white-collar expat who earns more in Taiwan than they can in their Western home country. If I could earn more in Taiwan than in London, I wouldn’t hesitate to move to Taiwan permanently. This definitely seems to be the mentality of a lot of expats I’ve met in Taiwan and posters on this forum. I would kill to be in your situation, as I couldn’t possibly continue my current London lifestyle in Taipei on the kinds of salaries I can expect there, taxes and living costs factored.
Does anyone else have feelings of food insecurity here? They’re constantly out of healthy food I can actually eat. It’s impossible to meal prep because things are available one week then not the next. It cost too much to rely on shopee and shipping varies.
I believe we should all start stocking up on things. Really need to adjust diets to things that are going to be readily available when the siht hits the fan.
Better to adjust now and suffer that instead of when we’ll have greater worries.
I’m just not a fan of the “healthy lunchboxes”…. dry wall has more flavor. So my diet here isn’t good. The healthy options in the US are a lot more varied and appealing.
I wouldn’t say food insecurity, but yeah, the inconsistent availability is annoying. My cupboards are way too overstocked because when I see something, I don’t know if it’ll be there next week. And I’ve definitely gone into supermarkets with shopping lists for multiple recipes of what I could eat for dinner, and failed to find the right ingredients for any of them.
. It didn’t have enough variety of flavors!