I am also not a teacher. Actually most of the Australians in GaoXiong (Kaohsiung) are not as far as I know. Australians are generally neither as desperate enough for jobs to take the lower paid teaching jobs (mostly read South Africans here) and not as popular with students/schools to get the better paying ones that often insist on North American accents (mostly read Canadians here).
No, I don’t feel Taiwan owes me a living, but I also feel we don’t get a fair go on some levels and that the government is doing nothing about this and it would be a good idea to use the absurd figure of 35000 vs 14 to some effect.
Not Australians but I have met some other foreigners who had tried to apply for WH visas and had been greeted with “they don’t exist”. I can’t imagine lots of Australians are wanting to rush to Taiwan but 14 a year? I can’t help but wonder if the same is not happening for Australians who do try to apply. I am sure that given the populations of the 2 countries are VERY close (both about 23 million) 35000 vs 14 shows something is VERY wrong with the systems in place when the idea was for it to be reciprocal.
Just read bumclouds last post. I can not help but 100% agree.
It looks like Taiwan needs to pony up some free tea and cookies at least.
Hi Bumclouds, where do your numbers for numbers of WH Taiwanese and WH Australians come from? I need a source to use this information. Thanks.
I don’t think there is much the Taiwanese government can do to alter the ratio. Anyone in Australia on the minimum wage (AU$16.37) and working 40 hours per week would be getting the equivalent of about NT$60,000 a month, after tax. Why one earth would someone come to Taiwan and work for $NT20,000? They could bank that back home in two weeks.
Anyway, I don’t think Taiwan is really on the radar of young Australians, aside from those seeking out Chinese study.
Nothing they can do to alter the ratio? Well putting all sorts of impediments in place to stop it being used at all like telling people working in their visa offices to not say “that program does not exist” might be a start. I would imagine more than 14 a year would come for non-money driven reasons if the opportunity was really there in a way that could be used practically. Damn I probably would have back in the day when I had been studying Chinese. When I first came here I was not formally studying Chinese in Taiwan but coming here was useful for practicing spoken Chinese. It clearly isn’t being operated on an even plain when you have 14 vs 35000 a year. I am lost as to what the hell the benefit to Australia is to continue this? If Australia wants cheap labour hire people from the Philippines or India or wherever. If Australia wants to really give an opportunity to young Australians well do so with countries that will truly reciprocate on an even level (plenty of young Australians would consider working holidays in places in the UK, Europe, Japan etc). But Taiwan is just shooting itself in the foot and for now getting away with it. It does not deserve to though.
I’ll make a wild guess that he was using the number 128 from a Taipei Times article dated April 2, 2012:
[quote][color=#000080]Taiwan has issued working holiday visas[/color] to 38 Canadians since July 2010, to 27 Germans since October 2010, to 175 South Koreans since January last year and [color=#000080]to 128 Australians since the deal with Australia was reached in November 2004[/color].[/quote]–Staff writer and CNA, “Overseas working holiday visas pose a number problem” taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003529322
This September 17, 2012, China Post article uses the same number:
[quote]According to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, only 928 permits have been issued to foreign nationals to work in Taiwan, with Japanese taking 517 of them and South Koreans and [color=#000080]Australians getting[/color] 175 and [color=#000080]128 permits[/color], respectively.[/quote]–CNA, “Taiwan 5th largest working holiday source in Australia” chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/nati … an-5th.htm
This is probably putting far too fine a point on it, but if I count from November 1, 2004, through September 17, 2012, I get an average of about 16 permits per year for that time period, if the number of working holiday visas granted to Australians in that time period was 128. I get about 17 per year if I use the period from November 1, 2004 through April 2, 2012 (the date of the Taipei Times article). But I don’t have the figures for Australians granted working holiday visas in Taiwan during the period of July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013, which is the period cited below.
Australia seems to count from July 1 of one year to June 30 of the following year when calculating working holiday visas granted. So for the one-year period ending on June 30, 2013, Australia says that it granted 28,599 first working holiday visas and 7,162 second working holiday visas, for a total of 35,761. Source: Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, “Working Holiday Maker visa program report,” 30 June 2013, pages 18 and 19 immi.gov.au/media/statistic … -jun13.pdf
But whatever the figure is for working holiday visas granted by Taiwan to Australians from July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013, I think the thing’s still going to look a wee tad lopsided.
Working holiday makers spend more money in Australia than they earn. Also, many take regional jobs that Australians shun. The latest report I can find with information on their earnings/spending is from back in 2009 - Evaluation of Australia’s working holiday maker program - however I’m pretty sure the government is keeping an eye on this to keep everything to Australia’s advantage. According to that report, the majority of working holiday makers leave with a positive impression of Australia, would recommend a working holiday to their friends and intend to revisit.
Ok, so I understand that 35K WH makers from Taiwan vs 14 from Australia is very much lopsided, but SO WHAT?? I just don’t get why people are making such a fuss about this. Are you guys really expecting the numbers to be even just because the WH visas are based on RECIPROCAL agreements? There are LOTS of reasons why the figures are lopsided which have nothing to do with Taiwan “getting away with something” which implies Taiwan is getting an unfair advantage. But any excuse for some Taiwan bashing is welcome on the flob, I believe.
Fact is, if you look at figures of WH makers in Australia compared with the number of Australians in any other country that has reciprocal WH agreements with Australia, the result will always be similarly lopsided. Australia is clearly the market leader in WH with a long history and I guess any other country that offers WH visa programs would pale in comparison.
For example, try googling the statistics for WH makers in Australia and you will easily get results (here’s a comprehensive report: immi.gov.au/media/statistic … -jun13.pdf). Now try finding the same info for, say, France, Germany, Canada, Japan or South Korea (for better comparison with Taiwan) and you will have a hard time finding any info at all, let alone any statistics. Why is that? Probably nobody really cares that much about the WH programs there. Maybe there are no suitable work opportunities in those countries. Also, remember that Australia is a classic tourist destination for young people the world over (besides it’s practically a whole continent, not some tiny overpopulated island). Language is not an issue (compare this to Chinese, Korean, Japanese or even French). This cannot be said of most other countries in the world, except maybe the US which does not even offer a WH program. In the end, Taiwan is a lot less attractive as a tourist destination to young Australians than vice versa and the numbers reflect this. Why is this so hard to understand?
I don’t know, 14 is hardly enough to justify ‘reciprocal’ is it? Each side should get something out of it, and there are obviously things that could benefit Australian residents in Taiwan more, perhaps reciprocal agreements on driving licenses, longer-term visas etc.
If I was a Mandarin student in Oz, I reckon I could get a Taiwanese company to employ me for 35K a week if I had my own visa. Would be good work experience for a year.
This makes no sense. Why would you go to Australia to learn Chinese? Why would a Taiwanese company there want to hire you? Where on earth did you get the figure of 35K (assuming NTD) a week? Around half of Taiwanese people don’t make that much in a month.
And if you were on a student visa rather than a working-holiday visa, you wouldn’t be allowed to have an income at all, thus making it illegal.
[quote=“bumclouds”]Sorry to go off-topic, but there’s just one thing I want to add:
Some people ask where I’m from and I say ‘Australia’. Then they say “I’m sorry… But your country did not treat me very good”.
A couple of questions later, I usually find out that they went on a W.H to Australia, but they did not come back with the huge bags of money they were expecting; so therefore they were mistreated. Disappointment+dinted pride ≠ mistreatment. It’s as if many of them feel like they are owed free money. I just don’t get it.[/quote]
Maybe they look at all the foreign workers who were born in a country on the “English language nation” list, show up with no skills other than the ability to speak their native language (more or less . . . often more on the less side), and get paid a guaranteed minimum of 1.5X the median Taiwanese wage plus all the pussy they can bone? :roflmao:
Well it’s not that the English teaching wage is good, it’s that Taiwanese wages are so poor.
I’m not making a fuss about it, but that MOFA rep in the article didn’t seem too pleased. And I don’t think the Taiwanese are getting away with something. I think Australia has that arrangement–including the unlimited quota–because they’re satisfied with it. And I got that idea from browsing some of the Australian government webpages on the subject. I expect that by and large, these young Taiwanese make a good impression on Australians.
Now, I probably couldn’t manage a lemonade stand, and I wouldn’t make a very good salesman, either. But it seems to me that there ought to be some kind of way to attract more people here, in order to make Taiwan better known. I’m old, but if I were young, I might very well think that Taiwan was a cool place (in fact, on my good days, I do think that). There needs to be some way to get the word out that there is a country over here called Taiwan, a real country, and a more-or-less free and democratic country. And I think that’s at least one of the reasons why that MOFA guy wanted to see an increase in numbers on the Taiwan side of things.
No offense, but this is a pretty arrogant (not to say stupid) statement. Ever thought about who pays for the English teachers and what these people earn on average?
The Australian government consider the program a great success. They are expanding it to a larger number of countries. The only real concern they have is that working holidaymakers might compete with Australians for urban jobs to an unacceptable degree. Recently the unemployment rate reached a ten-year high of 6% and the opposition leader is now pinning this on an unpopular PM - the program could become politicized. Already the Australian Council of Trade Unions has begun making noises, calling for a re-think of the policy.
By the way, the situation between Australia and Korea is basically the same, with many thousands of Koreans going down under and practically no Australians going to Korea.
This topic got me curious as to where Australians like to travel to.
No mention of China, let alone Korea, let alone Taiwan. Taiwan just isn’t on the radar, at any level, aside from being a pawn in Chinese/Japanese/US relations (with Australia dry humping America’s leg at every opportunity 
).
I still don’t get why they don’t give us 90 days visa-free.
No offense, but this is a pretty arrogant (not to say stupid) statement. Ever thought about who pays for the English teachers and what these people earn on average?[/quote]
It’s a completely neutral statement of fact, and that’s all it was meant to be.
No offense, but this is a pretty arrogant (not to say stupid) statement. Ever thought about who pays for the English teachers and what these people earn on average?[/quote]
It’s neither of the above. I guess of HH2 were an English teacher it could be construed as arrogant (“My salary is high, but not by my standards”), but he’s not, so that’s moot. It’s a very reasonable thing to say if you look at Taiwan in the context of countries of comparable developmental standards. Starting salaries for a lot of college grads here are around US$700. For people who go to college abroad and come back, they’re probably looking at just over US$1,000. That is insanely low considering the costs for housing, cars, and family affairs like hongbao.
English teachers may make almost twice that much, but that doesn’t go very far if they’re liberal arts majors paying off student loans and credit card bills from back home. Objectively, it’s a small amount of money.