Taipei, Oct. 23 (CNA) With some 18,000 foreign workers employed in the industrial and social welfare sectors in Yunlin County, the local government said Monday that it has set up a service center consultancy to enhance communication between the workers and their employers.

Yunlin County Labor Affairs Department Director-General Chang Shih-chung (張世忠) said that assisting in communication and coordination between employers and their foreign employees is one of his department's key missions.

The department is tasked with helping contract workers from foreign countries to adapt to the life, culture, folk customs and laws in Taiwan, Chang said.

In the southwestern county, most of the foreign workers are employed as domestic caregivers, factory workers, caregivers at health care centers and fishery workers, according to Chang.

Most of them are from Indonesia, accounting for 45 percent of the total, followed by those from Vietnam at 35 percent, the Philippines at 10 percent and Thailand at 8 percent, Chang said.

In the future, the new facility will organize workshops for local employers, foreign workers and labor brokers to give information on the laws and regulations related to labor-management relations, insurance, work contracts and wages.

The new service center will also organize activities to promote cultural exchanges and language courses for both local employers and their foreign workers, the official said.

Chang noted that his department has hired personnel who can speak English, Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese to help with foreign worker affairs. Anyone with questions about such affairs can call the 1955 hotline for service, he added.

(By Yeh Tzu-kang and Elizabeth Hsu)
Enditem/J