Taiwan yesterday lifted an entry ban on migrant workers from Vietnam and the Philippines, in addition to those already permitted from Indonesia and Thailand, but employers are required to follow a considerable number of revised COVID-19 control measures, the Ministry of Labor said.
Under the new rules, arriving migrant workers can stay in quarantine hotels instead of government quarantine facilities.
Employers must cover the accommodation costs of the 14-day compulsory quarantine and seven-day self-health management that migrant workers must undergo upon arrival, the ministry said.
Photo: Yao Kai-shiou, Liberty Times
However, for migrant workers employed in social welfare, government subsidies to the employers would cover 50 percent of the accommodation costs, at a cap of NT$1,250 per worker per day.
While the government would pay for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing upon the completion of quarantine, employers would need to pay for transportation and field costs incurred by medical personnel dispatched to quarantine hotels, the ministry said.
The employers and migrant workers must practice disease prevention and control measures.
Under the new rules, migrant workers must be fully vaccinated before being approved to enter Taiwan.
Employers must notify the local government in whose jurisdiction the quarantine hotel is located.
Before going to their workplace, migrant workers must undergo the quarantine and self-health management in the same quarantine hotel.
Upon arrival at the airport, migrant workers must take a PCR test. They are to receive a free COVID-19 rapid test kit before leaving for the quarantine hotel.
Between the quarantine and self-health management, the migrant workers must take a PCR test and they must take a rapid COVID-19 test before leaving the quarantine hotel, at the end of self-health management. The employer must confirm the test results and upload the data to the ministry’s Entry and Departure of the Foreign Labor Airport Care Service Web site.
Employers must register migrant workers on the Web site and enter details such as their nationality, date of entry, flight number and the person picking them up at the airport, the ministry said.
Migrant workers would be approved for entry three to 30 days after being registered on the Web site, it said, adding that the quarantine hotel, vaccination certificate, COVID-19 insurance documentation and PCR test results would also need to be uploaded.
Taiwan in May last year banned the entry of all foreign nationals without residency — including migrant workers — following a local COVID-19 outbreak.
Late last year, the government allowed the entry of migrant workers from Indonesia and Thailand.
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