A record 421,000 foreign workers are being employed in Taiwan where demand for live-in carers has surged due to the ageing population, local media reported Sunday. There are 172,000 workers from Indonesia, 93,000 from Vietnam, 82,000 from the Philippines and 72,000 from Thailand, the United Evening News said, citing statistics compiled by the Council of Labour Affairs.
The total does not include the more than 30,000 illegal foreign workers on the island, the paper said. "With Taiwan gradually becoming an ageing society, demand for live-in caregivers and nannies and maids has been on the rise," the paper quoted an unnamed official from the council as saying.
"It has surpassed the demand from the manufacturing and construction sectors which had once dominated the foreign labour market."
The number of people aged 65 and over accounted for 10.74 percent of the 23 million population, above the seven percent level at which a society is defined as "ageing" by the World Health Organisation, according to the interior ministry.
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