from MIGRATION NEWS Vol. 16, No. 3, July 2009

Taiwan. Taiwan is an export-dependent economy hit hard by the fall in global trade. Taiwan's exports fell over 40 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier, and manufacturing employment fell as electronics factories laid off workers. Unemployment topped six percent, the highest rate in decades.

Many of those laid off were foreign workers. The number of foreign workers peaked at 374,000 in July 2008 before falling to 343,000 in April 2009, when migrants were almost four percent of Taiwan's 9.2 million workers. Migrant layoffs were concentrated in electronics and garment manufacturing, affecting primarily Filipina and Thai women, while the number of Indonesian caregivers rose slightly. In April 2009, the number of migrant caregivers, 172,000, exceeded the number of migrant industrial and construction workers, 171,000, for the first time.

Many foreign workers want jobs in Taiwan because of relatively high minimum wages, NT$17,280 ($510) a month or about $3 an hour in all sectors except care giving, where the minimum wage is NT$15,840. Manufacturing workers typically earn $200 to $400 a month in overtime. Most of the migrant women employed in electronics are in their mid-20s and usually have at least high-school diplomas.

As factory production shrinks, foreign workers risk loss of overtime and layoffs. Most migrants live in company-provided dorms, for which many employers deduct NT$4,000 a month for room and board, 23 percent of the minimum wage. In addition, Taiwan allows the labor brokers who match most migrants with jobs to charge up to NT$1,800 a month for their first year in Taiwan, NT$1,700 a month during the second year, and NT$1,500 a month during the third year, or about 10 percent of the Taiwanese minimum wage.

However, many brokers charge migrants an additional NT$200,000 ($6,000) as a placement fee, which is allowed if the migrant signs a side agreement.

Foreign workers are not obtaining the overtime work they expected, making it difficult to repay the loans they took to get jobs in Taiwan. Migrants are entitled to the minimum wage even if their hours are reduced unless they agree to fewer hours. Some factories have asked migrants to adopt 4-3 work schedules, four days of work followed by three days off.

A few migrants have accepted return tickets to their countries of origin, saving their employers severance costs; many hope to be selected to return when the economy recovers. With recovery, however, many of the minimum-wage assembly jobs now filled by migrants in Taiwan may move to lower-wage countries such as China and Vietnam.

The Council of Labor Affairs, which regulates the employment of migrant workers, banned the recruitment of additional foreign workers in March 2009 for factories wishing to hire migrants for the third or overnight shift. The CLA also limited migrants to a maximum 20 percent of a manufacturer's work force.

http://migration.ucdavis.edu

GMANews.TV - After Vecina, 57 more OFWs still on death row - Pinoy Abroad - Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs - Latest Philippine News

GMANews.TV - After Vecina, 57 more OFWs still on death row - Pinoy Abroad - Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs - Latest Philippine News: "MANILA, Philippines - Overseas Filipino worker (OFW) May Vecina’s reunion with her family on Tuesday after a year on Kuwait’s death row is definitely another feather in the cap for the Arroyo administration.

But the current number of OFWs facing the death penalty abroad means the government still has a lot of work to do.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday said the number of overseas Filipinos on death row stands at 57, down from 59 after the commutation of the death sentence of an OFW in Taiwan and the reversal of another in Malaysia."

PIA Information Services - Philippine Information Agency

PIA Information Services - Philippine Information Agency: "In 1997, Janette's husband left her for another woman while she was still working in Taiwan. One of her children broke the news, advising her to stop sending money to their father because he got a new woman in their house."

PIA Information Services - Philippine Information Agency

PIA Information Services - Philippine Information Agency: "Cebu City (14 June) -- An OFW from Taiwan appeals to the government and prospective employers to waive, if not, reduce the experience requirement for job applicants in the 111th Independence Day Mega Job Fair that is now underway in SM City Cebu's Grand Trade Hall since Friday.

Mark Anthony Campos, 27, from Butuan City came to Cebu just to try his luck here looking for work so he can help his family back home.

'They (government and prospective employers) must consider waiving or reducing the highly prohibitive experience requirement for the job offers which is unfair to those who know the job well but only lack a year or two in related work experience.

Campos is one of the thousands of OFW's from Taiwan that were retrenched last year after several manufacturing and export companies there suffered losses due to the economic slump in America.

With dismay, he said that since his homecoming last December, he can no longer count the job fairs he has joined."

The Manila Times Internet Edition | OPINION >OWWA’s deficiencies

The Manila Times Internet Edition | OPINION >OWWA’s deficiencies: "Has OWWA really performed to the best of its well-paid officials’ and personnel’s abilities? Has that attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) satisfactorily done what the law requires it to do, and done what plain respect for the dignity of fellow Filipinos demands it should do for our OFWs and their dependents?

Unfortunately, the answer that must be given is NO.

For OWWA to do its job well is especially vital now in times of the OFWs’ great distress amid the global economic meltdown.

One OWWA failing that must immediately be brought up is the inadequacy of the help it gives OFWs in jail, many of them jailed unjustly. Many OFWs have been victimized by their employers. Some of them are victims of rape by the employers and fired when they protested or, worse, accused of crimes they did not commit."

Southeast Asia - Migration News | Migration Dialogue

Southeast Asia - Migration News | Migration Dialogue: "Philippines. Almost 1.4 million Filipinos were deployed to overseas jobs in 2008, an average 3,800 a day and up significantly from 1.1 million in 2007. Remittances were $16.4 billion in 2008, up from $14.4 billion in 2007.

The unemployment rate in the Philippines approached eight percent in January 2009, almost three million, prompting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to issue Administrative Order 247 to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to 'execute a paradigm shift by refocusing its functions from regulation to full blast market development efforts, the exploration of frontier, fertile job markets for Filipino expatriate workers.'

The sharp rise in migrant deployments in 2008 could be followed by return migration in 2009, as last-hired workers are laid off. Over 6,000 Filipino migrants, mostly women working in electronics factories in Taiwan and men working on Middle Eastern construction projects, returned home before the end of the contracts in the first three months of 2009. The POEA dispatched teams to Taiwan, Dubai and Korea to help Filipino migrants who had been laid off.

Laid-off migrants who return to the Philippines are eligible for 10,000 peso ($210) grants to obtain training in opening a small business. After completing the training, graduates can obtain 50,000 peso loans at five percent to open a small business.

There are about 125,000 Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong, and they protested the POEA's ban on direct hiring in February 2009. Since 2007, domestic helpers headed to Hong Kong must use an approved recruiter, who cannot charge a recruitment fee but may charge training fees, which helpers say are P20,000 ($417) to P100,000."

Economic downturn weighs on Filipino migrant laborers | International | Reuters

Economic downturn weighs on Filipino migrant laborers | International | Reuters: "In the case of Ang, after paying a recruitment agency 120,000 pesos (about $2,500) for a job at an electronics factory in Taiwan, she was retrenched within a year and is back in the Philippines without any work at all.

'I wanted to earn more money so I could build a house for my family, but that did not happen,' said Ang, 31, who gave up her job as a quality control officer at a garment factory near Manila for a job in Taiwan that paid four times her salary.

As the global economic crisis deepens, countries such as the Philippines, which are heavily reliant on remittances sent home by migrant workers, face the prospect that workers may return en masse after losing jobs in recession-hit economies abroad."