Labor Minister Pan Shih-wei says there are currently no plans for promoting labor exports. He was speaking on Monday at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.
Officials from foreign ministry and Mainland Affairs Council also gave reports on the current state of Taiwanese nationals working overseas.
A ruling party lawmaker – the Kuomintang’s (KMT) Wang Yu-min – spoke about the situation in South Korea. She said that the most recent two presidents of South Korea had systematically promoted overseas job opportunities for citizens 29 years old and under. The hope, Wang said, was that they would bring new ideas back to South Korea.
When asked if Taiwan’s labor ministry had similar plans, Minister Pan said that further assessment was needed.
“At this point, we have not yet considered it," said Pan. "It involves not only the labor ministry, but also the entire country, and higher level policy decisions. That is to say: ‘Do we want to become a country that proactively exports labor?’ If we look at other countries in the world, it is countries like the Philippines, and Indonesia in which the country promotes the export of labor. But we are not at that stage, we need to use caution in assessing the situation, because we are not there yet."
Pan said, though, that Taiwan’s young people should look beyond Taiwan, and those who have the ability to do so, should work overseas. He said that young people should work to improve their employability.