Opportunity for Northeast Indians to find jobs in Taiwan. Here’s how

Guwahati: Northeast Indians could explore new vistas of employment in Taiwan as the country has signed an agreement with New Delhi to facilitate the employment of Indian workers to address labour shortages.

“The two sides will schedule meetings to discuss the number of workers and the industry sectors they are needed for, among other issues”, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on Monday.

To become eligible for a job in Taiwan, applicants will have to exhibit a “set level of education and good command of English”, according to the Taiwanese government. Taiwan will first conduct a small-scale trial and evaluate results before recruiting further workers from India.

A job in Taiwan could prove to be highly lucrative for a person from India. The monthly minimum wage on the island is 26,400 New Taiwan dollars (about Rs 70,000) per month, in contrast to India’s national-level minimum daily wage of Rs 178.

Taiwanese firms have expressed a keen interest in hiring people from India’s northeast region, home to around 45 million people, due to the similarity in “culture and diet,” according to reports in Indian media.

The move comes at a time when Taiwan and India have been expanding cooperation in areas such as culture and education, investment and trade, science and technology, and medicine and public health, noted a release.

According to Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor, the move is in response to increasing labor shortages in agriculture, construction and manufacturing sectors, as well as in the care sector. According to Taipei, Japan and South Korea are also planning to invite an Indian workforce to their countries. A timeline for this, however, was not specified in the release.

Although India does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which Beijing views as its territory, bilateral trade has been growing steadily in recent years, with India ranking as Taiwan’s 14th-largest export destination and its 18th-largest source of imports.

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