萬國法律事務所

The Council of Labor Affairs plans to modify the conditions for hiring foreign workers.

Before hiring a foreign national, a Taiwan employer must first attempt to hire a local worker to fill in the job vacancy. Only when it can be reasonably believed that no local worker can perform the job can an employer seek to hire a foreign national. This condition is imposed to prevent Taiwan employers from hiring foreign nationals instead of local workers, which leads to unemployment and related social issues.

Under the current regulations, a Taiwan employer seeking to hire a foreign national must first publish a notice of job recruitment in a newspaper for three days. The employer must wait until 21 days have passed since the first day that the notice was published, and if no local worker can be found who is able to perform the job, the employer can apply to hire a foreign national. However, people now rely increasingly on the Internet when seeking job opportunities. The "old way" of using newspapers to publish employment opportunities seems obsolete in that it cannot be relied upon as a convenient source of information. Therefore, the Council of Labor Affairs has devised a new requirement for job opportunity notices.

Under the proposed regulations, employers must fulfill one of the following two preconditions before they will be allowed to seek foreign national hires: (1) post a job recruitment notice on the Council of Labor Affairs' "e-job" website(http://www.ejob.gov.tw), and if after 21 days from the posting of the notice no local worker is found who can perform the job, the employer will be permitted to hire a foreign national; or (2) publish the notice for 3 days in a newspaper, accompanied by a notice on the e-job website, and if after 14 days from the posting of the notice no local worker is found who can perform the job, the employer will be permitted to hire a foreign national. Day care laborers will not be affected by this new rule.

The new regulation is expected to come into force in 2014.