Foreign Talent in Taiwan: What obstacles will you meet?

Taiwan is a hidden gem in Asia: It's a beautiful, safe and welcoming country to live in, and surveyed expats report being incredibly satisfied with their quality of life . However, for those foreigners who wish to start and grow a successful career here, it can be quite challenging. There are approaches you can take to make the roadblocks easier to bypass

The topic of working in Taiwan as a foreigner is something I've spoken about on multiple occasions. I've had the pleasure of speaking at events discussing this issue hosted by All Hands Taiwan, The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, TAITRA and at a couple of job fairs. Within the foreigner community in Taiwan, this is the pervasive question: what are my options here professionally? I chose the sub-title of my article, not to suggest foreigners here are rough, but to allude to the difficult truth about living here as a foreigner: life in Taiwan is fantastic but the job prospects are not great. You have to accept the rough with the smooth.

What do the statistics say?

At the end of 2019, there were 785,341 foreigners living in Taiwan, 363,323 males and 423,018 females. Around 92% are from South East Asia and around 14,000 are from the larger English-speaking countries. The Ministry of Labor categorizes foreign workers into two major groups; Productive and Social Welfare and Special Professions or Technical Assignments. These categorizations are traditionally what is known as blue-collar and white-collar. The blue-collar labor market has 719,487 people working in mostly manufacturing and domestic nursing. Within the white-collar demographic, here are some of the noteworthy statistics:

• 5,084 in Education (4,367 of these people are cram school teachers)
• 19,929 in Specialized Technical Work (mostly engineers)
• 1,266 in Accommodation and Food Services
• 1,712 in Arts and Entertainment
• 3,118 Directors of Foreign Businesses (Country Managers, Taiwan GM)

For the purpose of this article, I will focus on what could be considered white-collar labor, as my own expertise regarding the blue-collar labor market here in Taiwan is limited. Unfortunately, I lack direct connections to these workers, companies, or working environments. My job focuses on recruiting mid-to-senior level white-collar talent in Taipei, and so this is the area I am most qualified to discuss.

Who am I?

The reason I've been asked to give presentations about this topic is that I work as a headhunter in Taiwan for a company called Paul Wright Group.

An important part of my job is being hyper-aware of the labor market and hiring trends in Taiwan. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that internal human resource teams often rely on the market information that headhunters share with them. We trade in gossip and data. Effective and experienced headhunters will be experts on the job market they work within. I'm also a foreigner, a young Scottish gentleman to be precise. As one of the few foreign recruiters in the market, I attract a lot of attention from foreigners seeking advice about the job market. I'd say on average I speak to two or three different foreigners a week about their careers. These candidates all have unique professional backgrounds and the advice I give them depends heavily upon their individual situations. I want to talk a little about the different categories of jobs typical to Taiwan.

The Education Industry

For those professionals who have chosen education as their career, Taiwan has a lot of opportunities. There are thousands of kindergarten and cram school jobs available, as well as prestigious international schools for the more accredited teachers. There is a myriad of ways to pursue a career in education, be that teaching, opening your own school, coaching, editing textbooks, etc. I personally found teaching to be a difficult yet rewarding job and a lot of my friends here are in the industry. My take on it would be quite straightforward: if you enjoy working in this industry and feel challenged and fairly compensated, that’s great!

I would however add that the majority of frustrated professionals I encounter here are teachers whose hearts aren't in it. I was in this category once myself. I taught English in Taiwan for four years before deciding to move to Shanghai with the intention of getting into something new. The gamble paid off and I’ve been working in the headhunting industry for seven years now. For foreigners who wish to transition from a teaching position into another industry, the battle is an uphill one. I’ll attempt to tackle the question, "So what can I do to achieve this step?", a bit later on in the article. But first I want to distinguish between people in this situation seeking advice, and the expats who are at the very top of the pyramid.

Expat Contracts

Expat contracts, as they are known in the industry, are given to foreign professionals who have been sent to work in the Taiwan branch office. This group of talent is sourced from headquarters and is usually very globally mobile throughout their careers. The expat General Managers of multinational businesses here are on a vastly different level from the average worker. Expat contracts include things such as rent, a driver, children's private education, flights home and massive salaries. The total cost of these people to the companies who hire them is often astronomical compared to the average worker.

For this group of foreign professionals, there is not much I need to tell you. If you are being paid massive amounts of money to work in Taiwan and your contract runs out, finding a similar job here as a local hire is virtually impossible. For local hires, i.e. foreigners who already live in Taiwan who are applying for jobs here, we need to play the game alongside our Taiwanese colleagues. In most cases, local hire foreigners who work in the business are paid no more or no less than their Taiwanese colleagues. Unlike in the teaching industry, their foreignness doesn't entitle them to preferential treatment (and quite right!).

But why is the job market so difficult for foreigners in Taiwan?

Before advicing foreign professionals who wish to stay and build a career in Taiwan, I want to tackle the fundamental question at the core of the issue. Why is the job market in Taiwan limited and challenging for immigrants? This question is more than a little difficult to answer and I think taking it on as an MBA thesis topic would be an interesting endeavor (tempting!). The answer I most commonly give in private discussions is one that I'm guessing will attract a degree of controversy. I think that one of the major reasons why there aren't a plethora of opportunities for foreigners in the professional market here is that Taiwan's history doesn't include large periods of European colonization. Major cities throughout the world, after undergoing long (and often brutal) periods of European rule, usually became more international and cosmopolitan.

Places like Hong Kong and Shanghai grew to accept foreign businesses and businessmen as the norm. During the period of modernization in Taiwan however, the market was not heavily influenced by Western companies and people. Taiwan remains a largely homogenous society (the exception being the aboriginal community, whose own history and relationship with colonists is not without brutality and suffering). The effect is that Taiwanese businesses are mostly localized, they don’t have a history of hiring many foreign white-collar workers. Change is a slow process, and the reality is that the majority of businesses here have little experience hiring foreign professionals.

The current situation in the job market is that when given a choice between hiring a local who speaks English or a foreigner who speaks Chinese, the former wins almost every time. As an example, a large Taiwanese company that sells its products globally will have a workforce composed almost solely of Taiwanese employees. If this Taiwanese company is selling into the Russian market, they'll hire a Taiwanese person who speaks either Russian or just English to work in their sales team. It could be argued this is nonsensical - surely a marketing professional from Brazil is going to be more effective at marketing a product in Brazil than a Taiwanese local who has been randomly assigned that territory. However, this is not the norm in Taiwanese companies.

Foreign businesses in Taiwan are sometimes even more localized, with 99% of the staff being Taiwanese. These multinationals would seem like a good place to start as a foreign professional looking to work in Taiwan. For instance, if you are from France, you might think that French companies such as L’Oréal, Pernod Ricard, Air Liquide and Chanel might hire you to work in their Taiwan office. It is definitely possible, and I won’t discourage anyone from trying. However, these companies are overwhelmingly localized for justifiable reasons, it makes sense to hire Taiwanese people to focus on their local market, where their native language and cultural understanding will help them make their employer financially successful. For example, L’Oréal hiring a French candidate to work in mid-level sales, marketing or supply chain is very uncommon. The only notable exception I’ve witnessed is global management trainee programs or brand ambassadors in the alcohol industry.

It also isn’t a question of salary cost or working visa as I often hear. If you bring up the topic of this article to a Taiwanese professional, they will most often guess that companies are reluctant to pay higher salaries for foreigners or that the working visa is difficult to apply for. I don't think either of these excuses is correct, the minimum salary for a working visa (ARC) is 47,971 NTD per month which is at the very bottom end of the salary spectrum for professional jobs in Taiwan. Even junior-level employees can make between 60-90k per month. The working visa or ARC permit is also not difficult for companies to apply for and costs them only a small expense. Taiwan's working visa stipulations are very reasonable compared to many other countries.

About the Author
Alan McIvor
Practice Leader at Paul Wright Group
Alan McIvor is a Scottish headhunter based in Taipei with Paul Wright Group. After finishing his Master Degree at the University of St Andrews, Alan McIvor decided to come to Asia to live. He instantly fell in love with Taiwan and its people, extending his stay for four years. In mid-2019 he joined Paul Wright Group as Practice Leader in Taipei. He is hoping to grow his professional network in Taipei and APAC and is working hard to become one of the top headhunters in the market. Jia you! He focuses on  the recruitment of mid to senior level professionals.

〔Original :Meet Global〕
https://meet-global.bnext.com.tw/articles/view/47418