Migrant Worker Entry Ban Lifted The Ministry of Labor (MOL) granted Indonesian migrant workers entry to Taiwan in November, ending an entry ban that had been in place since December 2020. The MOL indicated that Thailand will likely be the next country exempted from the ban, followed by Vietnam and the Philippines. According to the…
Wage Hike For Public Workers Approved The Executive Yuan in late October approved a nearly 4% wage hike for public workers, to take effect in 2022. The hike marks the biggest increase in government salary levels in over two decades, and will apply to civil servants, teachers, and military personnel. The salary adjustment comes as the…
Yu Shyi-kun Elected Legislative Speaker Former Premier Yu Shyi-kun, a newly elected Democratic Progressive Party legislator-at-large, was elected Speaker of the Legislative Yuan on February 1. He succeeds two-term Speaker Su Jia-Chyuan, who decided not to run again after his wife, Hung Heng-chu, announced her bid for legislator representing Pingtung County on the DPP ticket…
The Tsai administration is making an effort to pursue “transitional justice.” Will it be healing or divisive? February 28, 1980 has gone down in Taiwan’s history as the date of one of the nation’s most gruesome unsolved murders. An intruder entered the ground-floor apartment of opposition politician Lin Yi-hsiung and fatally stabbed his mother and…
The Jinshan reactor 2 goes offline with a transmission line collapse. The last remaining operational nuclear reactor in Northern Taiwan – Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant (NPP 1) reactor 2 – was automatically shut down after one of the main transmission line towers at the plant collapsed during torrential rains on June 3. Taiwan Power Co….
After much controversy, a revised Labor Standards Law has now been enacted. Last November 22, AmCham Taipei sent a letter to the Ministry of Labor (MOL) expressing member companies’ concern over uncertainty being experienced in the scheduling of public holidays. The letter noted that both employers and employees had been inconvenienced during previous months by…
Political measures dominated the year’s first legislative session. The recently completed session of the Legislative Yuan (LY) attracted particular attention as the first in Taiwan’s history in which a majority of the seats were held by a political party other than the Kuomintang (KMT). Following elections last January, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) now…
Meet the New Cabinet With the inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen on May 20, a new cabinet takes office. Below are some of the key players likely to be involved in areas of particular interest to the business community. Premier Lin Chuan Minister of Finance from the end of 2002 to the beginning of 2006,…
The Taiwan media, once tightly controlled, is now considered the freest in the region. But much criticism is directed at the quality of the content, especially for television news, where competition among the seven all-news cable stations has led to an emphasis on sensationalist and often trivial stories, with scant international coverage. Amid public concern…
Ma Ying-jeou Visit to Taiping Stokes Controversy President Ma Ying-jeou’s decision to visit Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island) in the South China Sea on January 28 to reiterate Taiwan’s claim to the disputed island and its status as a landmass brought criticism from the United States. Taiping Island is the largest of the Spratly (Nansha)…
