Taiwan Business Topics 18 October 2018
Filling the gap are foreign caregivers – Taiwan’s angels of mercy that work for far below the minimum wage, often isolated from the public in tedious and occasionally hostile living environments.
According to the National Immigration Agency, Taiwan had 253,679 foreign caregivers as of August this year, mostly from Indonesia (193,187), with smaller numbers from the Philippines (31,600) and Vietnam (28,392).
The salary for these caregivers, who often find themselves on duty around the clock, is set at NT$17,000 per month. This salary falls far below the minimum wage of NT$21,000 per month for Taiwanese for a 40-hour workweek, but is in fact a significant raise over the NT$15,840 provided until 2015, when Indonesia threatened to bar its workers from Taiwan over the low salaries.
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