- An extended Lunar New Year holiday provides people from the self-ruled island with the opportunity to rethink their careers as the death toll from the deadly infection continues to rise
- Online poll finds 63 per cent of Taiwanese unwilling to return to mainland China over health concerns
Taiwanese account manager Douglas Liu values his life more than his job, which is why he will be staying at home on Monday rather than going back to work in the mainland China city of Suzhou.
Liu returned to his home in Taipei on January 10 for an extended Lunar New Year
As of Saturday, about 98 per cent of the infections and 99 per cent of the fatalities were in mainland China, two figures that have prompted many Taiwanese to rethink their employment plans.
According to a survey conducted last week by online recruitment agency 104 Job Bank, 63 per cent of Taiwanese with jobs on the mainland said they would not be returning to work after the extended Lunar New holiday. Before Wuhan was placed under lockdown on January 23 in a bid to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the figure was just 50 per cent.
“The intensification of the outbreak has created panic and insecurity for Taiwanese who work in mainland China and the lockdown of many cities has further discouraged them from returning to their jobs,” said Jason Chin, a senior vice-president at the recruitment agency.
Chin said that the containment efforts had made it impossible for many companies to resume normal operations and provided a catalyst for Taiwanese workers to seek employment elsewhere.
“Taiwanese often to change jobs after the Lunar New Year, so the mainland government’s policy of delaying the resumption of regular business activities has given them more time to look for work outside mainland China,” he said.
Shannon Chiu is another Taiwanese who decided to call time on the mainland because of the coronavirus outbreak.
After two years working for an agricultural technology company in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China’s Henan province, she said she already had concerns about the standards of health care there.
“Being sick in Zhengzhou is a nightmare for Taiwanese because of the poor organisation and registration procedures,” she said.
“You either have to wait hours to see a doctor or go hospital-hopping in the hope of getting an appointment somewhere else.”
Chiu said she was still working in Zhengzhou after the outbreak had been reported in Wuhan – about 500km (310 miles) to the south – but no one in the city was wearing a face mask.
“I was lucky because I came back to Taiwan a week before the lockdown and my company allowed me to continue working from Taipei,” she said.
“Although I no longer enjoy the expatriate benefits, I feel a lot safer here because I don’t think I would survive if I was put in a mainland hospital because of Covid-19.”
Source: SCMP
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