Taiwan Bans Recruitment for Jobs in China To Combat Brain Drain (nikkei.com) 40
Taiwan has told staffing companies to remove all listings for jobs in China, a drastic move to prevent the outflow of vital tech talent to the mainland amid rising tensions between Taipei and Beijing. From a report: The Labor Ministry said that all Taiwanese and foreign staffing companies on the island as a general rule may no longer post openings for jobs located in China, especially those involving critical industries such as integrated circuits and semiconductors, according to a notice seen by Nikkei Asia. The move comes as Beijing seeks to build up the mainland's semiconductor industry -- a goal that has intensified demand for Taiwanese engineers. "Due to geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China, China's semiconductor development has suffered some setbacks and as a result China has become more aggressive in poaching and targeting top Taiwanese chip talent to help build a self-sufficient supply chain," the ministry said in the notice.
Recruitment platforms and headhunters are barred from helping or representing any company in efforts to hire individuals for work in mainland China. Violators face fines from the ministry. "If the recruitment involves semiconductors and integrated circuits, the penalty will be even higher," the notice said. Taiwan's biggest recruitment platform, 104 Job Bank, told clients in a letter Wednesday to "please close your job vacancies in China as soon as possible to avoid violating the regulation," citing the ministry notice.
Recruitment platforms and headhunters are barred from helping or representing any company in efforts to hire individuals for work in mainland China. Violators face fines from the ministry. "If the recruitment involves semiconductors and integrated circuits, the penalty will be even higher," the notice said. Taiwan's biggest recruitment platform, 104 Job Bank, told clients in a letter Wednesday to "please close your job vacancies in China as soon as possible to avoid violating the regulation," citing the ministry notice.
uh oh, little China (Score:5, Funny)
If little China's economy can't keep up with big China's, then little China's raison d'etre seems shaky. I expect Big Trouble in Little China soon.
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Shaking down a billion peasants and low value added workers by artificially suppressing their wages and using the money gained to jump start higher value added industries works. But that's not on the strength of the economy, but on the strength of mercantalism.
Mercantilism works ... just like protectionism can work for the US.
Re: uh oh, little China (Score:3)
Because they're winding down on bootstrapping the higher paid industries.
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Taiwan's GDP per capita is only... 2.5x bigger than big China. They're hardly in danger of losing that competition, despite the way most people refuse to look at anything but the latest trend lines.
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Taiwan's GDP per capita is only... 2.5x bigger than big China. They're hardly in danger of losing that competition, despite the way most people refuse to look at anything but the latest trend lines.
[slightly off-topic]
talking about "per capita" with China hides the massive imbalance between the rich Eastern coastal provinces (with wages and standard of living comparable to "the West") and the much poorer inland provinces. The rich Chinese don't particularly like the uneducated peasants/factory workers...
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Point of a gun. (Score:3)
Due to geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China, China's semiconductor development has suffered some setbacks and as a result China has become more aggressive in poaching and targeting top Taiwanese chip talent to help build a self-sufficient supply chain," the ministry said in the notice.
Thing is invasion is a poor recruitment tool for a country as well.
pay (Score:2)
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Remember, its not theft if its coming from a renegade province.
It isn't theft in Chinese culture anyway.
They do not view that sort of thing as "property." That's why it is hopeless to stop them from misappropriating IP in general; there is no moral aversion to overcome, and anybody doing local enforcement doesn't view the person who did it as having acted immorally.
Simply put, they do not believe you can own things that are "intellectual." They do no believe in the temporary granting of monopolies to (supposedly) further and encourage the arts. Instead, they believe th
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It isn't theft in Chinese culture anyway.
I'd argue it isn't theft in any culture. The notion of "intellectual property" is a recently invented legal fiction umbrella term, and copyrights, trademarks and patents are also invented legal fictions. Even though they started more than a hundred years ago, it hasn't seeped into the culture - it's still largely a business thing. Most people don't see anything wrong with copying another person's idea, or another person's work, and if you tried to play IP shenanigans on a personal level, you'd just be ridic
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It isn't "theft" in any culture, but in the west most people do respect the legitimacy of contractually protected secrets.
If you sign an NDA at work, to protect your boss, violating that is viewed as a serious moral transgression, a violation of trust.
In China that isn't a power an employer necessarily has. Only certain types of secrets would be seen that way. For most things, they would only respect it as a secret if the government told them it was. Not just, if the government wrote a law, but if a governm
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Do you know what cheap arseholes who do not want to pay top wages do when competing countries offer better pay and conditions, the ban the foreign country. This is insane anti-worker stuff, fuck you and your brain drain, smart workers are not your fucking slaves, you stinking pack of shit heads, we go where the fuck we want to go and to where they offer the best pay and conditions, of employment and quality of life.
What a pack of master slave shitheels, want to keep them, you lying greedy fucks, provide be
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Not just Taiwan (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, back a few years ago when I worked in a different, highly proprietary segment of the industry, everyone knew the story of the poor epi engineer who took just such a role, but quickly quit. Unfortunately he didn't wait until he was back in the US to quit, suffered an unsolved tragic accident, and returned in a body bag. Very real story, there used to be an awareness website up about it.
Instead of banning recruitment though, it's too bad for the Taiwan engineers that they don't get to benefit from the competitive pressure. It seems like only sports players and actors ever get to benefit from high salaries from bidding wars.
You would have to be mad (Score:2)
To leave Taiwan to work in China if you had a choice. Lifestyle, politics, and dangerous if you ever wanted to return.
Presumably these engineers are not badly paid in Taiwan.
So I am surprised that the recruitment ads are relevant.
Poaching corrupt TSMC employees to steal trade secrets is a different measure. But they would not be advertised in any normal way.
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Poaching corrupt TSMC employees to steal trade secrets is a different measure.
If they've worked on anything important, the "trade secrets" are in their heads. So they don't even have to "steal" anything. They just advertize, hire, and pick their brains.
North Korean nuclear program (Score:2)
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Taiwan is learning from Hong Kong's experience (Score:3)
In the 80s and 90s, Hong Kong was the largest source of foreign direct investment in China - a process that "not only helped reduce China's capital shortage problem but has also promoted its foreign exports and accelerated technology transfer from the industrial world." [jstor.org]. Only for China to eventually clamp down, impose restrictive laws and chuck people in jail.
Taiwan's just avoiding upfront payments for its own demise.
"Taiwan's just avoiding upfront payments..." (Score:2)
^^Good post.
Taiwan isn't about freedom, it's about making as much money as practical before freedom ends. Sane Taiwanese with money will have bought homes and had children overseas to expedite their escape from a fate only fools (and NeoCon shills nostalgic for the Cold War but in no danger of personal combat) pretend isn't inevitable.
Taiwan's fall is unfinished business from the Chinese civil war and of vital importance to the unification of China. Taiwan does not acquire nuclear weapons because it is not