19 March 2024. Work Better Innovations releases the second policy brief to accompany the upcoming Taiwan Business Forum on Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence in Taipei, on 9 April. The brief’s central theme is leveraging responsible recruitment for the SDGs in the labour migration to Taiwan.
Titled “Labour Migration to Taiwan: Leveraging Responsible Recruitment for Sustainable Development,” this research was authored by Shuhan Lin and Dr. Bonny Ling. This is the second publication of the Taiwan Project for Business and Human Rights.
This Policy Brief outlines the important contributions that migrant workers in Taiwan make to sustainable development outcomes in their countries of origin via remittances that are particularly seen in:
- Higher household income;
- Increased access to housing;
- Promoting quality education;
- Remittances as support during crisis; and
- Supporting entrepreneurship.
As well as discussing the economic benefits of remittances sent by migrant workers in Taiwan, this policy brief also addresses the associated loss or delay of positive development outcome due to Taiwan’s flawed labour recruitment system, under which migrant workers bear their recruitment fees and related costs of their job placement in Taiwan.
Thanks to our collaboration with the Indonesian journalist Randy Mulyanto, this Policy Brief also features two stories of Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan. Their stories frame these remittance statistics on the lived experiences of migration to illustrate the costs associated with migrant workers’ employment in Taiwan, as well as the benefits of their remitted earnings.
For clarity on the terms of labour recruitment as used in Taiwan, we suggest for this brief to be read in conjunction with Work Better Innovations Policy Brief No. 1 / 2023, released in December 2023, as an English-Chinese terminology “dictionary” of recruitment fees and related costs in Taiwan.
“Glad to have an analysis focusing on the contributions of migrant workers in Taiwan to human development, in concrete statistics and in stories. The topic has long been overlooked. Ultimately human beings in pursuit of decent living are the essence of labour migration but not the labour force alone. I hope this policy brief will bring substantial change.” – Shuhan Lin
Sustainable development is fundamentally about people’s ability to thrive: lead a long and healthy life, have access to education, and a decent standard of living.
This policy brief concludes that the Employer Pays Principle where “no worker should pay for a job [where] the costs of recruitment should be borne not by the worker but by the employer” must take root in Taiwan to enable the flourishing of sustainable development.
We will release the third and final set of research policy briefings in the coming weeks, to build momentum for the first Taiwan Business Forum for Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence. The Forum will take place in Taipei on 9 April 2024! Please register for the Forum at https://www.cw.com.tw/feature/event/2024wbi.
We are deeply grateful to the funder and the many individuals whose work brought this research to print. To see our other publications, please visit here.
