Taiwanese employers threaten to stop hiring OFWs

MANILA, Philippines –  Taiwanese employers are threatening to stop hiring Filipino workers next year to protest the Philippine government’s mandatory insurance regulation.

Jackson Gan, Pilipino Manpower Agencies Accredited to Taiwan (PILMAT) president, said employers from Taiwan have expressed their intention to cancel 50,000 job orders for Filipino workers in 2011.

“Taiwan principals have sent a letter of their opposition to the mandatory insurance coverage with the warning that if our government will insist on implementing the double coverage for Filipino workers to be deployed to Taiwan they will cancel all the 50,000 job orders for 2011 and just get workers from Indonesia or Vietnam,” Gan said.

He said every contract worker in Taiwan is covered by two types of insurance, one for personal and the other is group insurance. Each overseas Filipino worker (OFW) is given a personal insurance coverage worth NT$800,000 equivalent to more than P1.2 million, and at the worksite a group insurance covers all workers at the factory.

“This is definitely more superior to the insurance coverage under the law which only provides $15,000 for accidental death and $10,000 for natural death,” he said.

There are about 100,000 OFWs employed in Taiwan, most of them employed as factory workers or caregivers.

Earlier, employers and Filipino workers in Hong Kong also expressed their opposition to the mandatory insurance coverage, which the Philippine government started implementing last week.

But Philippine labor officials said they are obliged to enforce the requirement since is it provided under the newly amended Migrant Workers Act.

Labor officials further stressed that the mandatory insurance coverage would provide additional protection for OFWs.