The Legislative Yuan passed the amendment to the Employment Service Act to shorten the waiting period for migrant workers

A recent amendment to the Employment Service Act was enacted by the Legislative Yuan to lessen the effects of labor shortages on businesses and family care. Future waiting periods for industrial migrant workers to fill in will be decreased from six months to three months if migrant workers escape and cannot be held accountable by their employer, and from three months to one month for family care migrant workers. According to the Ministry of Labor, the legislative change will assist 1,000 families and 2,000 enterprises.

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The Legislative Yuan passed the amendment to the Employment Service Act to shorten the waiting period for migrant workers.Photo reproduced from freepik

The employer must still wait six months and three months, respectively, before applying for a replacement migrant worker under the current provisions of the Employment Service Act if an industrial migrant worker or a family care migrant worker escape and disappears and the employer is not responsible. Waiting for the immigration labor shortage to be filled also puts a strain on company owners and families who require care. The waiting periods for replacing industrial migrant workers and family care migrant workers will be reduced by this amendment to three months and one month, respectively.

New provisions are also included in this modification. The original employer may submit an application for a new migrant worker in the future if both the migrant worker and the employer agree to switch employers, or if the migrant worker's employment permit has been cancelled for more than one month and no new employer has been found to re-employ.