Working in Taiwan: an assessment of the current situation

Work Working in Taiwan
1

Hello everyone!

I would like to start this thread to get some assessment about the current situation of foreigners working in Taiwan. How many of you are teaching English? How many of you are working in a Taiwanese office or international company? What do you think about work opportunities in Taiwan? Do you see any professional future for yourself on the island?

I would especially like to hear about your satisfaction (or unsatisfaction!) level in terms of work environment, salary and so on.

Please share your views on this topic!

2

Please share your motivation?

3

Well I am currently working at a Taiwanese architecture firm and I am not very happy with my job. Controlling boss, micromanagement, long hours, toxic atmosphere, low pay, ecc ecc.

I researched a bit on this forum about other peopleā€™s experience and I found some threads from 3, 4, 5 years ago about the topic. According to what I read it seems like these issues are not exclusive of my office but quite widespread on the island. Moreover, it seems like it is not easy for foreigners to get hired by local firms/ companies, therefore my fear is that there is no room for professional growth here in Taiwan. I previously had no idea about this scenario because I applied and got hired by this firm from abroad and I relocated to Taipei after signing the contract, so I never really had to look for a job in Taiwan.

Since my contract with this firm will end in July and I have no intention to renew it, I will soon have to decide whether I should start looking for another job in Taiwan or planning a relocation to some other countries with better professional opportunities.

I noticed many threads about the topic are a bit outdated (mainly 2007, 2011, 2012), so I am wondering if things have changed during the last years and I would like to get a more updated view of the situation!

4

Iā€™ve been working here 15 years for a mixture of local and foreign enterprises. I think You already discovered the issues with working here, namely long hours, low pay, few vacation days, poor management and weak contracts, lack of professional advancement or training opportunities, valuing of foreign education more, lack of international environment and colleagues. On the last point I work for a multinational in Taiwan and once again, as has always been the case, I am the only foreign employee here! This is par for the course in Taiwan, it is the normal
situation. Most industries are like this. Every now and then you might get lucky or after a LONG HARD and UNDERPAID graft get something decent but it will be HARD.
In short you know the answer to your question already.
If you are young and professional qualified you will probably rise faster, learn more, earn more, and enjoy work more in another country.
I work here now because I have a good job in terms of income and family situation, but I havenā€™t learned anything from my Taiwanese colleagues in years, all the new ideas and insights I get from my interactions with foreign colleagues. There are many capable Taiwanese , But many leave and never come back and the lack of other cultural backgrounds can be stultifying
long-term.

5

Taiwanā€¦where careers go to die. You should probably think about opportunities in other countries if your main goal is professional advancement.

But, if you like Taiwan, consider making another go at it. There are many foreigners who have been quite successful here in all kinds of ways. They tend to be people who are passionate about what they do and make it happen despite the lack of clear career paths here.

That is especially true if you are a professional. Your situation is probably quite different than people transitioning from teaching English and without experience overseas. Perhaps look around and see if you can find something with interesting work for a while then consider starting your own business. While you are still working for someone else, make the effort to learn Chinese.

Things have not changed in recent years and I personally donā€™t think they are likely to change anytime soon in terms of long hours, low pay, and toxic work culture being the norm. But there are exceptions. Go out and find them!

One thing you said is incorrect. I donā€™t think it is that difficult for foreigners with skills like yours to find work in Taiwanese companies and get a work permit.

6

I have been working for a local IT company since May last year. There are about 6~7 other westerners working here. They told me during my interview that they are looking at expanding and hoping to hire more foreigners in an effort to make the company more multi-national. I was hired to take up a PM position even though I have never been a PM before. I was told not to worry about not having the experience for the role as they would be able to train me. At the time I was on a working holiday visa which was about to expire and wanted to stay to live with my girlfriend so I accepted the job.
I only work 9 to 6:30 because we donā€™t get paid overtime. I am usually one of the first 2 to leave in my department. Itā€™s crazy sometimes in the mornings when I go through my emails I notice some have been sent by some people at like 1am or 2am and I sometimes would get to work after them.
Even though I have been working here less than a year they have already moved me from PM to a Product Planner role and the marketing department tend to send a few things my way to proof read. I feel that I havenā€™t got alot to do and wonder why they even hired me in the first place but I am more than happy to do this role as it is different to what I had been doing for 8 years previously.
If you work in a company like mine and donā€™t know Chinese very well then there wonā€™t be much career progress so my company is nice enough to offer to pay half of my costs to get a Chinese language tutor which I am currently in proccess of looking for.
I am earning less than half of what I was getting back home but it is not a problem for me because I am doing something different to what I was doing and gaining experience. The work environment is quite friendly and it seems everyone gets along. They are very generous with the amount of sick leave (you would have to be really sick to use it all up) but could give us a few extra days for labor leave but I can handle it.

7

I work in the textile industry here in Taoyuan at a fabric supplier. Iā€™m the only foreign worker here but have a good amount of coworkers who speak very good English. I got the job through an uncle of mine who worked with my now boss back in the day.

I agree with what is being said; low pay, long hours, micromanagement, poor management, staff get treated really badly, few vacation days and all that shit. Itā€™s not a good working environment, I was entry level when I started and I have learnt very little from the company and more on my own initiative.

Iā€™m their foreign trophy though, their ā€œlook how international we areā€ sign. They donā€™t quite know what to do with me so Iā€™m stuck doing very menial tasks. But I find that management here is pretty rubbish at knowing what to do with their staff anyway. There are people in management positions purely cos they had been there the longest but were not trained on how to manage staff and are not equipped to either. Also they have a hard time recognising peoples strengths and playing to them. Iā€™m always denied a pay rise because my Chinese isnā€™t good enoughā€¦Iā€™m a native English speaker! I bring something else to the tableā€¦if you judge a fish on itā€™s ability to fly then of course itā€™ll fail.

If I could describe Taiwanese companies in one word though it would be inefficient. I find the systems here woefully inefficient.

Iā€™m leaving after Chinese New Year after nearly 2 years. I canā€™t take it anymore, itā€™s a horrible environment to be in. Moving to greener pastures. Gonna teach English for a bit and really crack down on learning Mandarin.

Dinowilson mentioned he gets good sick day benefits. I wish that were the case for me. I was horribly sick and went to the hospital, had all the forms and certificates and wee baggies of drugs. Getting my pay docked was just an insult to injuryā€¦

8

I find that is one of the biggest problems here in Taiwan. Instead of people earning their higher positions with good work, creative thinking and ideas and being able to manage people ect., they just wait around to get promoted purely based on how old they are and how long they have been at the company for.

9

Few weeks ago I actually got an interview at a small local Interior Design firm founded and run by a Westerner who has been working in Taiwan for 20+ years. The guy was very nice with me and I think we had a honest conversation: he pretty much told me that my resume, portfolio and professional profile were very impressive and that normally I would be a great candidate to hire for any firm, but he couldnā€™t afford to hire foreigners.

He also told me that he honestly thought that virtually no local firm out there would be willing to hire foreigners because of the money and the language barrier (I speak conversational Mandarin but I am nowhere close to a full professional profiency). He said that, given the situation in Taiwan, I was probably very lucky to be offered the job I already have in the first place.

Pretty depressing if you ask me :frowning:

10

Local salaries have been on the decline for a while. Local firms fire their own Taiwanese employees before retirement because they cannot afford the costs. hence, foreigners or any high earning position is a cost most firms cannot afford because they need government authorization to hire them, ie, have paid all their taxes, legally declare the right amount of taxes, etc. and in order to compete in the race to make the cheapest items, they just cannot do so.

This core belief that the only way to compete is go cheaper and lower prices more and more is what hinders all. Anything that goes against this mentality is risky, and risk is bad. You will lose money, even though you lose more money that way. Which is why Taiwanese firms invest in ā€œplaces that are ripe for development as great marketsā€ such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Irak, etc. It is the only road open.

the Taiwanese workplace is an even worse example of the most pernicious parts of the society because you give power to antiquated and obsolete structures. Absolute power from blindly following authority and holding your lifeline meager salary. From hence comes in the inefficiency. People not doing a thing in offices because there is lack of planning, for starters. Initiative is evil. So is creativity. No communication between levels. Fomenting conflict within underlings so no one will rise to the higher level or get people to unite for the common good. Dangerous.

11

Well I am currently working at a Taiwanese architecture firm and I am not very happy with my job. Controlling boss, micromanagement, long hours, toxic atmosphere, low pay, ecc ecc.

ā€¦[/quote]

That actually sums it up! :unamused:

12

Good oxymoron, like American intelligence and British summertime

13

Good oxymoron, like American intelligence and British summertime[/quote]

I am afraid I must agree with you :roflmao:

14

I encountered all the issues you listed in my experience so far. I thought if it was just a problem of my firm but it seems like it is way more widespread than that.

15

I work as a software developer in Taiwan since 2004. Never did any language teaching. I think itā€™s not easy to find jobs, but that may now be because Iā€™m in my late 30s now, I donā€™t know. Pay has gotten lower. I used to have a really, really decent pay but I left and came back. I now have a low wage, the company I work for is really small, but work is interesting and I enjoy some freedoms. For now. I expect when they grow theyā€™ll start to adapt and have more Taiwanese rules. In general it is about cheap and controlling peopleā€™s hours and not give too much. Run unprofessionally with low standards. Compared to my home country itā€™s very bleak. It pisses me off to no end how it works and how itā€™s accepted by Taiwanese workers, itā€™s our predicament when having a life & family here. What can you do? Just always look out for something better.

16

Iā€™ve worked in two national universities (where ā€œnationalā€ simply means public) and a research institute. Salaries are standardized, thereā€™s been a bit of room for merit pay in the past few years, but Iā€™ve just heard that the Ministry of Education has deemed this merit pay to be illegal and it will henceforth be cut. You can draw your own conclusions from this.

Within this field of employment in Taiwan, Iā€™ve noticed that the work environments vary widely: some open, some that I would politely call parochial. More impolitely, I have seen obvious cases of nepotism, corruption, an inability to identify and work toward future goals, and in one of these institutions an unapologetic disregard for the well being of workers.

While our salaries in this field are the lowest in the region, weā€™ve had pretty decent benefitsā€“though it is clear that these benefits are steadily being cut. As a result we risk simply being left with the lowest salaries in the region.

Happily, Iā€™ve found some good people to work with at some of these institutionsā€“this has provided opportunities for collaborative research projects and the chance to extend my network and to actually learn things and improve. One institution Iā€™ve worked at however seems utterly uninterested in any of this. It seems the only way they can imagine international researchers is as English teachers. Itā€™s genuinely sad.

Is the work environment improving? Well, there are certainly more international students passing through all the time, coming here from all over the world. I welcome the chance to meet them and I consider my ability to work with them to be one of the things I bring to the table. At the same time, with unimpressive salaries, clawed back benefits, and a discriminatory pension scheme, itā€™s hard to be optimistic. Itā€™s also striking how uninterested people are in passing along skills and helping the next generation of scholars get moving with their research. We seem to be very poor at teamwork and working together toward long-term goals. Iā€™d be curious to know if this is the case in other industries too.

Guy

17

Do you mean looking out of Taiwan or looking for a better opportunity on the island?

18

On the island.

19

Iā€™ve been meaning to post this for days. I started as an English teacher in 2008 and didnā€™t want to handle the more ridiculous aspects of the job for more than a year, so I tried to desperately to find employment in another field based on my Chinese abilities (conversational with passable writing skills at the time, fluent now). At least two employers, maybe more, were interested in hiring me but found they couldnā€™t because I didnā€™t meet the 2-year work experience criteria. Defeated, I almost went home but decided instead to apply for grad school in Taiwan.

[ul]Finding a job
[/ul]
While studying, I took a part-time job (legal on a student ARC!) with a full-time workload that I got through a classmate Iā€™d met before. I had two other case-by-case deals (one editing and one writing articles) through ads I saw pasted around Shida, and was taking translation jobs as they came by the referral of classmates, teachers, and friends. Then I graduated, and the fear of finding another job set in. Iā€™d set my resume on 104 and 1111 months before I officially graduated and there were no biters other than a few buxibans here and there, and I couldnā€™t find anything but teaching and a very small amount of sales jobs. I ended up getting my current job by complete coincidence ā€“ visiting my former office to learn that the boss had moved to a new organization and was having trouble finding an English editor for news.

Every job I have had except the first was found through chance or by networking. There is a weird schism in Taiwan where employers seem perennially unable to find qualified workers and qualified individuals seem perennially unable to find jobs. Itā€™s a very immature job market here that centers on only a few sectors, especially for foreigners, and geographically restricts them. (It took a long time to convince my wifeā€™s family that I couldnā€™t find anything suited to me in Taoyuan!) Then of course there are all those employers out there who say ā€œwe welcome foreign workers ā€“ but we give no ARCā€ and some that explicitly say ROC nationals only. As I recall, even J Michael Cole had trouble finding something after he left Taipei Times.

The difficulty in finding another job (and my belief now that there isnā€™t one for me in Taiwan at this point) is one of the factors pushing me to say goodbye to this place Iā€™ve called home for seven years.

[ul]The work environment
[/ul]
Itā€™s toxic. Even at fairly comfortable work environments like mine, there is an overbearing sense of disinterest among workers and palpable stress to meet managementā€™s unreasonable directives. Itā€™s dawned on me lately that everyone from policymakers down to most white-collar workers are stuck in this manufacturing mindset.

Extra day off for a holiday? You better make that up next Saturday, otherwise our production ofā€¦ uhā€¦ newsā€¦ is going to fall behindā€¦ Yeah, doesnā€™t make much sense does it? Of course if yourā€™e making harddrives for a major industrial client abroad, time is of the essence. Not so much when youā€™re teaching English or doing administrative work or trading stocks. Would it kill most companies to get that one extra day to sleep in? This also manifests itself in the reluctance to offer vacation time.

On that same token, employees are replaceable commodities. I heard an American employer say recently that he doesnā€™t like when employees quit without giving the company a chance to try and better serve their needs. It blew my mind. Imagine telling a Taiwanese boss: ā€œIā€™d like to keep working here but I need to get off at work at 5 everyday.ā€ The answer would be a firm ā€œmei banfaā€ and youā€™d be left to quit out of anger. Here, we are all assembly-line workers at the beck and call of seasonal orders. A post on PTT made headlines because someone complained that the new guy at his office is way out of line for leaving work on the dot every day. How twisted is this work environment?

[ul]International no more
[/ul]
Many are the tales of the 外商 (foreign-invested company) where the foreign laoban packed up and left 10-15 years ago, handing the company off to a sometimes competent local manager. Pay suddenly stalled, then began to drop, departments were downsized or even closed, benefits were slashed, and factionalization happened as different cliques vied for power in the new vacuum. I worked at one of these offices, a major international company which had previously employed 60 people, but under the secretary who was made general manager cause no one else was left, it plummeted down to just six. Last I checked in with them, only three remain.

Needless to say, few companies offer truly ā€œinternationalā€ work environments these days.

[ul]Treadmilling[/ul]
The rat race here is a treadmill for most foreigners ā€“ we run in place rather than making progress ā€“ unless you have a particularly impressive background or set of skills. Itā€™s hard to imagine a Westerner moving beyond middle-management (and Iā€™ve only met a handful of people who have made it that far) and while I rather like my job now, Iā€™m not sure I want to be doing it still in another 20 or 30 years. Thereā€™s also the issue of pay, which inevitably goes up, but itā€™s never going to double (is it? Iā€™m not sure) and Iā€™ll never be able to afford a home.

Iā€™m leaving Taiwan for deeply personal reasons that require a move home, but I have to admit that a lack of job prospects or ability to move forward in my current one are motivating factors.

20

That post is super negative, so let me ad a few positives here.

I have learned a lot living and working in Taiwan, especially about how to 做äŗŗ (deal with interpersonal relationships) when put in ridiculous circumstances. Iā€™ve made lots of lasting friendships and still very much like Taiwanese people and the broader culture at large, and I recognize that Iā€™ve been handed opportunities that would not have been possible for someone with my (lack of) qualificiations back home. Also, I donā€™t have any complaints about base pay because cost-of-living is so low Iā€™m saving more than most of my friends back home are. (Iā€™m not going to speak so generously about wage growth potential, though!) Even though Iā€™m reluctantly setting sail, I hope that I can accrue useful skills over the next few years and come back to put them to good use here. I recognize that even though itā€™s left me disappointed repeatedly, itā€™s not really Taiwan that has failed me; I simply canā€™t offer that much to this country, and so Iā€™ll be back whenever I can offer more.