Taiwan wants Indian labor

Taiwan and India signed a memorandum of understanding in February to facilitate employment of Indian workers in Taiwan, which makes India Taiwan’s fifth origin country for labor following Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

While it produces over 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors and over 90 percent of the most advanced ones, Taiwan is anticipating steep labor shortages in the next decade due to declining birth rates and a rapidly aging population.

As a result, Taiwan is working on taking in 400,000 foreign workers over the next 10 years to make up for the shrinking working-age population, among these measures are hiring more foreign workers, and attracting 320,000 international students to study in Taiwan by 2030, hoping that the majority would stay after graduation for employment.

As the escalating demand for labor in domestic care, manufacturing, construction and agriculture sectors can no longer be met with domestic labor supply, Taiwan currently hosts approximately 757,000 migrant workers.

Around 150,000 of them come from the Philippines.

Nonetheless, some worry that cheap Indian labor will take more jobs away from local workers because there were reports that up to 100,000 Indian workers may be allowed in, even though the authorities already denied the reports.

At the same time, some media reports point out that India overtook China to become the world’s most populous nation in 2023, and by 2030, India will be home to one billion working-age adults.

According to The Economic Times in India, the Indian government is drawing up a skilling upgrade plan which includes partnering with 30 countries in need of skilled workforce as part of its multi-pronged strategy to train and supply skilled Indian workers across the globe.

The key countries identified for supplying skilled Indian workers include the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Finland.

The initial mapping of workforce requirements across 16 countries showed demand for 3.7 million trained workers from India over the next five years.

One Indian official said: “The skills development ministry will undertake mapping of sector specific requirements in each of the identified countries and impart training accordingly to ensure India’s skilled workforce gets placed internationally.”

For instance, the German-Indian Migration and Mobility Agreement was signed in 2022. The agreement includes provisions to facilitate fair mobility for students and trainees, cultural professionals, journalists, academics and skilled workers who want to take up employment in one of the two countries.

In 2023, more than 42,000 Indian students studied in Germany, 25 percent more within one year. Indians have become the number one group of foreign students in Germany.

According to Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community, the migration of skilled workers from India to Germany offers great potential for tackling Germany’s shortage of skilled workers.

Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser said that “this is another important step in attracting skilled workers that we urgently need in the German labor market.”

Compared to India, the Philippines is the top one country of labor exporting, and labor skill upgrading may be something the authorities are working on currently.

The leaders of Japan, the Philippines and the US met on 11 April. It is declared in their joint statement that the US and the Philippines plan to “coordinate our efforts to develop and expand the Philippine semiconductor workforce to strengthen the global supply chain.”

As nations fiercely compete for talents, Taiwan can also grab the opportunity to attract or train more Filipino workers to contribute to the development of the semiconductor and other high-tech industries.