Low Wage Leads to Increasing Brain Drain|人才出走海外漸增 學者:主因在低薪

Is Taiwan losing more and more of its talents? According to the latest report, the number of Taiwanese who work abroad is around 730,000 in 2016, with more than half having college level education. while, among the foreign workers in Taiwan, 670,000 of them are foreign labors, and only 30,000 are skilled professionals. Academics believe that Taiwan is exporting high quality talents while importing low quality laborers, which is not beneficial for Taiwan's competitiveness in the long run.


(I prefer to work in) Mainland China. China offers considerably more job opportunities and higher wages.

Many university students prefer to work abroad because Taiwan's wages are comparatively low. According to a report from the Legislature Yuan's budgetary office, there were 662,000 Taiwanese citizens working abroad in 2009, and the number reached 728,000 in 2016, 73.4 percent of whom are at least college-educated. On the other hand, the number of skilled professionals working in Taiwan was 27,319 in 2008, and only grew to 30,928 in 2017, of which only 8.52 percent are the much sought after managerial staff or returning foreign citizens with Taiwanese roots. The number of foreign labors and domestic help has grown to 670,000. This shows that high quality talents are leaving Taiwan whereas low quality labor are entering, which many consider to be unbeneficial for Taiwan's long-term economic growth.

If Taiwan does not offer the same level of wages as other counties, it will be difficult to retain talents in Taiwan. We could make adjustment in education strategies, to make it more closely connected with our industries. We could foster more science and technology talents. We can also make some adjustment to the departments of literature, law, and business.

Scholars also points out, other than the low wage levels, hiring foreign talents in Taiwan is also hindered by the relatively strict laws. They hence call on the government to make changes and relax the laws to attract and retain more foreign talents.