Foreign contract workers employed in Taiwan’s manufacturing and construction sectors earned slightly less last year than in 2022, survey results released by the Ministry of Labor yesterday showed.
Migrant workers in the industrial sector had an average monthly income of NT$32,183 in June, down NT$120 or 0.4 percent from the same period in 2022, according to the survey, which is done once in the middle of the year.
The NT$32,183 figure was calculated based on a regular monthly salary of NT$27,284, up NT$1,218 or 4.7 percent from 2022, average overtime pay of NT$4,048, down NT$1,571 or 28 percent year-over-year, and an average irregular bonus of NT$851.
Photo: CNA
In June last year, the average number of working hours for industrial migrant workers fell 10.7 hours a month from a year earlier to 192.4 hours. Regular working hours averaged 167.4 hours and overtime hours averaged 25 hours, down 0.2 hours and 10.5 hours respectively, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, migrant workers serving as domestic caregivers had average monthly earnings of NT$22,638 in June last year, an increase of NT$2,105 from the same period in 2022, the survey found.
The figure was based on an average regular salary of NT$19,920 and average overtime pay of NT$2,291, which were up by NT$1,959 and NT$156 respectively from the previous year. It also included an average irregular bonus of NT$427.
Meanwhile, 86 percent of caregiver employers said they did not specifically set a number of hours their caregiver had to work per day, but regardless of whether there was a target, migrant caregivers worked about 10 hours per day on average.
Additionally, 60.6 percent of surveyed employers said their caregivers took days off during holidays or parts of holidays, the survey showed.
The survey found that 39.4 percent of caregivers chose not to take days off and that 95.1 percent of employers polled said they paid them for such overtime.
The ministry conducted the survey from July to August last year and obtained a total of 8,562 valid replies — 4,534 from companies in the manufacturing and construction sectors and 4,028 from employers of foreign caregivers.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its