Farming migrant worker quota increased to 20,000

The Ministry of Labor (MOL) on Friday said the quota for agricultural migrant workers in the country would increase from 12,000 to 20,000.

The additional agricultural migrant workers would be assigned to crop farming, livestock farming and “outreach agricultural services,” the ministry said.

The decision was made by a policy consultation committee of the ministry’s Cross-Border Workforce Management Division.

Photo: Lee Ching-hui, Taipei Times

The original quota for agricultural migrant workers was 12,000.

There were 8,505 workers in the country as of June, and the ministry expects at least an additional 3,500 workers to arrive by the end of the year.

With the committee agreeing to an additional 8,000 workers, the total number in that category would increase to 20,000, the ministry said.

MOL Cross-Border Workforce Management Division head Su Yu-kuo (蘇裕國) said that 4,000 workers would be assigned to crop farms, 2,000 to livestock farms and 2,000 to “outreach agricultural services,” in which non-governmental organizations or cooperatives would manage workers and assign them to businesses that need help with agricultural tasks.

Taiwan launched a pilot program for foreign agricultural workers in 2019 with a quota of 800, which was increased to 12,000 last year, Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) said in a report to the legislature’s Economics Committee in June.

The proposal to increase the quota to 20,000 was put forward by the Ministry of Agriculture to address the country’s labor shortage, and was approved by the MOL’s Cross-Border Workforce policy consultation committee on Friday, Su said after the committee meeting.

The increase would be accompanied by other measures, such as allowing turfgrass industry business owners to apply for agricultural migrant workers with certain requirements on a business scale, Su said without giving a timeline.

The sectors of sprouts, edible mushrooms, and rice seedling cultivation would also benefit from the increase in agricultural migrant workers and relaxed eligibility requirements, he said.