Job fair helps foreign spouses settle in

Formerly known as the “Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen “(VACRS), the VAC provides care and services to veterans and their dependents in the areas of medical care, home care, employment opportunities, and educational assistance.

Veterans eligible for assistance by VAC are called “Jung-min” (honorable citizens). Nearly 580,000 veterans living in the Taiwan fall under this category. In addition, their dependents number approximately 1,670,000.

VAC Minister Hu Chen-Pu said that currently there are over 30,000 veterans in Taiwan who are married to foreigners, which is about 12 percent of the total population of foreign spouses in the country.

Last year, the VAC provided employment consultation to about 5,200 foreign spouses, and so far this year the commission has helped over 1,400, remarked Hu during the opening ceremony of the fair, held at Taipei City’s Y17 Young Party youth activity center.

Close to 70 companies joined the activity, including job banks and franchisees of major brands as well as chain stores in the food and beverage industry.

Booths were also set up to educate foreign spouses on employment laws as well as the job market situation in the country and other topics pertinent to job-seeking.

According to the Employment Service Act, foreign workers may only be hired for the purpose of filling a limited category of jobs, including specialized or technical work, teaching at certain institutions, sports coach and athlete, religious, artistic, and show business work, crew member of a vessel, marine fishing/netting work, and household assistant.

Cita Lin, 36, a Filippina who has lived in Taiwan for over six years, attended the fair to find a factory job.

“I used to work at an office ... but now I’m looking for a factory job because the hours are better,” said Cita, adding that the extra hours will allow her to care for her three-year-old daughter.

The former nurse met her Taiwanese husband when she was working at a nursing home in Taiwan. Her transition into the country was a smooth one and recounts that it was “not hard at all” to get her work authorization papers, which took about a month.

For Chang Chien-ping, 38, a native of Guandong Province, the road to getting work authorization was a much longer one. She had to wait two years for a work permit, and six more to get her ID card.

Currently, it takes on average eight years for mainland spouses to receive an ID card and work authorization in Taiwan. This is a much longer wait for foreign spouses from other parts of Asia, for example, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia.

According to the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) Act Governing Relations between peoples in the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, mainland spouses’ visits are to be divided into four phases; namely, family reunion, spouse residency, long-term residency, and permanent residency.

In addition, the National Immigration Agency has set an annual quota of 12,000 spouses per year for mainland spouses to come to Taiwan. This figure was set last December in response to complaints that the annual quota, previously set at 7,200 per year, was too low.

Despite her long wait, Chang has no complaints and said she looked forward to finding a good job. She was considering opening a franchise of a renowned national convenience store chain.

Chang married her Taiwanese husband nine years ago. Unlike some of her compatriots, she said she never had a problem adjusting to the country, and actually feels more at home in Taiwan now. “If I thought I would think of my hometown all the time I would not have come here,” she said.

“I have a lot of friends here. I chat with them all the time and I’m able to engage in leisurely activities which I would not have been able to enjoy doing back in China,” added Chang.

According to Same Li, a spokesman of a national coffee store chain that participated at the event, opening a franchise store is a good alternative for mainland spouses who are unable to work upon arriving in the country.

If the Taiwanese spouse of a mainland national opens a franchise store, it is legal for the Chinese spouse to work at the store, he explained.

The caveat is, however, that the mainland spouse may not be on a salary nor be considered as an employee for tax purposes. “What is the need? If her spouse is the owner, then she does not need to be on a salary!” remarked Li.

Li said that franchise rights for his company cost about NT$200,000, which is still quite affordable.

Many Taiwanese who marry mainland wives choose this option to help their spouses speed up their assimilation into society, he said.

In response to issues of unbalanced labor supply and demand, the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) decided to open up Taiwan’s job market to foreign workers starting from October 1989.

CLA reported that as of the end of April 2006, the number of foreign workers in Taiwan was 333,593. Most were employed as manufacturing workers (50.38 percent), followed by caretakers (43.95 percent), construction workers (4.02 percent), fishing crews (0.97 percent), and domestic helpers (0.68 percent).

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