The New Cabinet and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) are starting out with a clean slate.
Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan (何佩珊) has clearly stated that her ministry does not intend to allow foreign migrant workers to work in the services sector. Consequently, the hotel and tourism industry’s desire to recruit migrant workers has been dashed.
Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourist numbers have largely recovered, but tourism workers have not matched this by returning to their old jobs, and hotels and tour operators are suffering from a serious shortage of workers. The Tourism Administration published a report on the likely effects of opening the travel and hospitality sector up to migrant workers. According to the report, Taiwan’s hotel operators have a shortfall of 8,000 workers, including 5,500 housekeeping and cleaning staff. The report says that employment incentives and wage subsidies provided by the Ministry of Labor and the Tourism Administration have had little effect, and the labor shortage is holding back the tourism sector’s recovery.
Over the past year while they were still in office, former premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and former vice premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) chaired meetings that provided some hope for opening the hospitality industry to migrant workers. The Tourism Administration formally requested this measure, suggesting that foreign migrant workers could be employed in basic tasks such as room service and cleaning.
The hospitality industry is the first segment of the nation’s services sector that could be opened up to foreign migrant workers. This proposal, coming during the sensitive period before January’s presidential and legislative elections, was sure to have a rough ride. The ministry employed delaying tactics, creating difficulties by forming a working group of experts and academics who repeatedly asked for supplementary information.
South Korea is also suffering from a shortage of workers and recently officially started accepting applications to employ foreign migrant workers in hotels and restaurants, with the first quota of 4,490 workers filling jobs that South Koreans were not willing to do, such as room service, cleaning and kitchen assistants. If South Korea can do it, why can’t Taiwan do it, too?
South Korea’s 62 five-star hotels had about 116,000 employees after the COVID-19 pandemic, which was more than 20 percent less than before. This serious shortage of workers has forced hotels to downscale their operations, especially their catering services. Evidently South Korea and Taiwan are facing the same problem.
Since South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol took office, his administration has greatly increased the number of E-9 non-professional employment visas. South Korea last year took in 125,000 foreign migrant workers, which was the largest quota in the past 20 years, and this year that number is expected to increase to a record-high of 165,000.
South Korean hotels and restaurants intake of foreign migrant workers is a limited trial. It specifically applies to restaurants that have been in operation for at least five years, which can each apply for one or two foreign kitchen assistants. Only hotels in Seoul, Busan, Jeju Island and Gangwon Province are eligible. Each hotel can apply to employ between four and 25 migrant workers to work as cleaners or kitchen assistants, in proportion to the number of South Korean workers they employ. South Korea’s step-by-step approach to employing migrant workers in the services sector is a good example that Taiwan would do well to follow.
Chen Yung-chang is a former deputy secretary-general of the Taipei Chamber of Commerce.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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