Taiwan recruiter says Filipino job applicants have halved as rival countries compete for workers

A Taiwanese recruitment agent told the United Daily News that Filipino applicants for jobs in Taiwan have fallen to less than half of earlier numbers as workers weigh better-paying options, even as Philippine data show deployments to Taiwan rose 8.03 percent in January to September.

A Taiwanese recruitment agent who interviews Filipino jobseekers in Manila says far fewer people now turn up for jobs in Taiwan, with applicants down to less than half of what he used to see, the United Daily News (聯合報) reported from Manila on 5 November in a series on Taiwan’s shrinking population and labour shortage.

The agent, surnamed Chen (陳繼賢), told the paper that before the pandemic he only needed to fly to Manila once every three months, but now he has to go every month to visit local agencies to ask for workers. He said Taiwanese employers could once choose candidates by education, English accent, height and weight, but workers now have more countries and conditions to choose from, so the choice is gradually shifting to them.

Inside Manila’s recruitment district

The paper described Manila’s Malate district as a hub of overseas recruitment agencies, with advertisements for jobs in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar offering free medical checks, training, accommodation and transport subsidies, and even recruitment for the Czech Republic and Hungary.

One applicant, 29-year-old Mallillin, made a 14-hour overnight trip from Cagayan Valley to apply. After passing the interview, caregiver applicants had to lift a person weighing more than 60 kilograms and hold them for several minutes to show they were strong enough for the job. Another applicant, 25-year-old Michaela, whose mother has worked in Taiwan for more than 10 years, said Taiwan felt close to her, but she did not rule out going to other countries with better pay and conditions.

The 2 November instalment reported that many jobseekers must raise more than 60,000 to 75,000 pesos (about NT$35,000 to NT$40,000) in recruitment fees before they even know who their employer will be, borrowing from relatives or taking out loans.

Competition from Japan and South Korea

Hsin Ping-lung (辛炳隆), an adjunct associate professor at National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Human Resource Management, told the paper that growth in the number of workers source countries send abroad will slow, while Japan and South Korea have recruited more aggressively in recent years and pay higher wages than Taiwan, making it harder for Taiwan to find workers.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor said it has set up an overseas recruitment centre in the Philippines and is continuing talks with source countries to expand government-to-government direct hiring of migrant workers and skilled workers.

Deployments to Taiwan in 2026

Separately, the Philippines’ Department of Migrant Workers said in its latest Overseas Employment Statistics that deployments to Taiwan rebounded to 77,890 from January to September, 8.03 percent higher than the 72,103 recorded in the same period last year, BusinessMirror reported on 2 November. Total deployments of overseas Filipino workers in the first nine months of 2026 fell 20.66 percent to 1,449,443.

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