Taiwan’s“Ministry of Labor” recently announced that it would bring in the first batch of Indian foreign workers as soon as the end of the year, sparking controversy on the island. On the 13th, the KMT“Legislative Yuan” party group held a press conference, saying that the current problem of missing migrant workers on the island is serious. The total number of missing migrant workers is 94,000, and there has been no improvement in problems such as language communication difficulties, poor intermediary management, and bad intermediaries profiting from them. They demanded that the plan for Indian migrant workers to come to Taiwan be stopped.
According to Taiwanese media reports, as early as 2023, Taiwan authorities were considering bringing in Indian migrant workers. Taiwan authorities signed an agreement in 2024 to bring in the first batch of 1,000 Indian migrant workers by the end of 2024, the taiwan-based China Times reported Monday. Taiwan’s labor minister, Hung Shin-han, said recently that there is a chance to bring in Indian workers this year.
After the news came out, there were many opposition voices on the island. Taiwanese society is strongly concerned about the issue of missing foreign workers. Many netizens feel extremely uneasy about the policies of the Taiwan authorities. They believe that there are now so many missing foreign workers on the island that the Taiwan authorities are not taking good care of them. Some people said that they would come back to the issue of introducing foreign workers when the Taiwan authorities can really put forward supporting measures to ensure the safety of the people.
On the island’s“Public Policy Network participation platform”, many people signed a proposal to“Strengthen the punishment mechanism for missing migrant workers and ecological and public security risk management.”. The proposal said repeated cases of illegal behavior by missing migrant workers in Taiwan show that there are obvious loopholes in the current system for the introduction and management of migrant workers.
According to Taiwan media reports, statistics show that the number of foreign workers in Taiwan has exceeded 800,000, of which more than 300,000 are from Indonesia, the largest number. Vietnam is second with 290,000. The Philippines and Thailand had 175,000 and 70,000, respectively.
Taipei City Councillor Hou Hanting, a member of the New Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) , said earlier that the DPP has a well-connected agency that wants to make money from the missing migrant workers’ business, Taiwan’s China Times News reported Wednesday.
As soon as the news of the introduction of Indian migrant workers by the end of this year broke, the green camp saw public opinion boiling, but also intended to blame this proposal as the opposition party. KMT“Legislator” Liao 12, listed a timeline refuting: in February 2024, the DPP authorities signed the relevant agreement documents; in April of the same year, the“Executive Yuan” sent a letter to the“Legislative Yuan”; In June of the same year, the opposition asked the Ministry of Labour for a report on the project, “In a very clear order”. It was the DPP that signed the agreement first, and the opposition then demanded strict controls.
“Legislator” Xie longjie bitterly criticized“Lai ching-teh has cheated once, how many more times will he cheat?” He published an article saying that during the 2023 presidential election campaign in Taiwan, foreign media revealed that Taiwan intends to open up to import Indian foreign workers, at that time, lai said it was“Fake news”, but the DPP authorities signed the relevant agreement documents soon after he was elected. Xie longjie said, so stupid rumor, no one will believe, “People do not pay, will only be more angry.”.
Structurally, Taiwan is facing a typical labor market dilemma: low birthrates, aging population and labor shortages in certain industries, making it almost inevitable to bring in foreign labor, local writers said Tuesday. But while the DPP authorities need more migrant workers to support their industries, they have failed to establish a stable social communication mechanism to deal with public anxiety about migrants. At the same time, due to inadequate supervision, cultural barriers, intermediary problems, making 100,000 missing migrant workers become a chronic disease.
How serious is the problem of missing migrant workers in Taiwan? About 1 in 10 legal migrant workers has gone missing. Missing migrant workers will affect public security, but also affect the rights and interests of business owners and the normal operation of the industry, these problems have not been properly resolved.
Lin Pei-hsiang, a KMT legislator, described the DPP’s move to bring in more foreign workers as“Not fixing the leaky roof, but adding another water pipe”. No wonder there was no public support.