22K逼走台灣高材生─台灣高階人才流失，全球最嚴重 @ Delphinidae

【香菊日誌(四)】

The low salary issue has become much more severe these years. Not until I saw this article, “22K staves off top students in Taiwan”, did I realized that there is not only the problem how much Taiwanese get paid, but also the treatments we have in Taiwan. Once, I thought I will stay in Taiwan because it is my country, where I grew up, no matter how cruel the environment is. Yet, the conviction is swaying now.

Last weekend, I went back to YiLan for attending my cousin’s wedding ceremony. Fortunately, I was indicated to arrange and decorate the wedding place so I went there earlier than others with some cousins, whom most of them have work experience. On the way to the wedding place, they talked about their jobs, mixing complaint and tiredness. What they said are things I have heard before, mainly for working overtime without getting paid, which the society and I am already used to.
After the wedding ceremony, one of my cousins drove me back to school. He had worked for maybe ten years or more and has changed his job two years ago. I asked him the reason he changed his job since I thought his former job might have a better treatment, at least the problem of working overtime might be slighter. However, what he said shocked me, in his former job, he should leave home before six o’clock and never come back earlier than 2am, which lasted for almost ten years. That’s why he decided to change to an international company, though he found the international company has fallen, too. Generally, employees get equal treatments in the same international company no matter which subsidiary you stay. Nevertheless, the subsidiary my cousin stays still ask them take on an additional shift while the employees in other country do not need to do. And the payments for Taiwanese employees decreased while the government detruded the 22K program. ”We have become the cheapest worker in the world”, said my cousin. Later on, he kept convinced me to find job aboard.

Though I thought I should believe what my cousin said to me, the article I read these days was the last straw that I found the environment is really not that rosy. The article not only makes mention of the low salary and the working overtime problem, but also the differences how the employers train their employees between Taiwan and other country.

Now, I know if I want to continue to make progress, maybe I should leave after graduate and come back few times when having homesick. “You still get more”, said my cousin.