Attracting Vietnamese migrant workers to Taiwan is becoming harder as other rapidly aging East Asian countries ramp up their efforts to bring in foreign labor.
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00:00Getting trained to work overseas, these students in Hanoi are studying for a shot at a better salary and better life outside of Vietnam.
00:09Since the late 1990s, when the Southeast Asian country began exporting its labor to East Asia,
00:15Taiwan was the top destination for Vietnamese workers.
00:19It's a strong relationship that makes Vietnam Taiwan's second largest source of migrant labor behind Indonesia.
00:27But now another competitor is trying to attract Vietnamese workers.
00:47Like Taiwan, Japan also faces a rapidly aging population,
00:52and Japanese human resources firms have rolled out new incentives like this technical training program to attract prospective Vietnamese workers.
01:01South Korea, another country with an aging population, has also been tapping Vietnam's labor market, increasing visa quotas for migrant workers.
01:11But for those who want to find work abroad quickly, Taiwan is still a preferred option.
01:23They have to train for a long time, four to six months.
01:28In Taiwan, it's faster, one to two months.
01:33And Taiwan would like to keep migrant workers coming, particularly those from Vietnam,
01:39since they make up over 45 percent of the migrant manufacturing workforce
01:44and have the second largest share in the social welfare and caregiving sector.
01:49Last year, Taiwan launched its first one-stop service center for migrant workers,
01:54converting this three-star hotel into a 500-bed training facility to help new arrivals settle in.
02:02The three-day program only takes caregiving workers for now
02:06and teaches classes in multiple languages, including Vietnamese,
02:10on Taiwan's culture and legal system, with tips on what to do if they run into trouble.
02:16The center is also staffed with fellow workers from Vietnam who've already been living in Taiwan.
02:30But Taiwan and Vietnam's partnership in labor hasn't always been smooth.
02:35In the early 2000s, Taiwan suspended working permits for Vietnamese caregivers because of a high rate of runaways.
02:43A decade since that ban was lifted, there's been a marked improvement in relations.
02:55With a serious manpower shortage looming over most of East Asia and the region's aging society,
03:01in the face of more competition from Tokyo and Seoul,
03:04Taipei is doing what it can to ensure Vietnamese workers continue to choose Taiwan.
03:10Chris Ma, Yixin Chen, and Joyce Zen for Taiwan Plus.