Why Taiwan suddenly needs 400,000 foreign workers for critical sectors, including hi-tech
- Island looks to inject considerable talent into pillar industries in the face of a shrinking labour pool, few births and a population that keeps getting older
- Taiwan saw a 5 per cent decline in total foreigners from 2020 to 2021, and some say more could be done to make island expat-friendly
Taiwan will try to attract 400,000 mostly white-collar foreign workers over the next decade to support the island’s pillar industries, including hi-tech, as the domestic population gets smaller.
National Development Council head Kung Ming-hsin said at a forum in Taiwan on Tuesday that the island needed that many foreign workers to fill all of the jobs created by changing industry demands in the midst of a shrinking talent pool due to low birth rates and an ageing population.
“This sounds like the right direction,” said David Chang, secretary general of the Taipei-based non-profit organisation Crossroads, which arranges events for new arrivals to Taiwan.
“There is a talent shortage that’s growing in urgency,” he added. “This is even a question about national security and where our soldiers are going to come from if we have a shrinking population.”
A total of 792,401 foreigners held Taiwan residency permits as of late 2020, as many expats were lured by the island’s lack of a Covid-19 outbreak – an outlier in the world at that time. But as cases crept up, that total dropped by 5 per cent in 2021, to 752,900 foreigners, according to official figures.
Taiwan is seeking out talent in seven industries that are key to its economic growth, Kung said at the forum. The sectors are “intelligent” machinery, the creation of a Silicon Valley for Asia, biomedicine, green energy, defence, modern agriculture and the circular economy.
Taiwan’s population, which now stands at 23.19 million, will go into negative growth by 2031, officials have warned. On average, Taiwanese women today give birth to less than one child each, down from seven in 1951. As childcare costs go up, more women pursue careers, and family dynamics have shifted in recent decades.