China Mainland LED enterprises coming to Taiwan for talent hunting - Taiwan enterprises may face talent shortage

talent shortage[/caption]

The LED factory San’an of the mainland poached the employees of the leading LED factory Epistar in Taiwan three years ago. This serious event of brain drain is called the “108 Heroes” event in the LED industry. Mainland enterprises coming to Taiwan for talent hunting are continuously increasing. Taiwan is only a small part of the “Ten Thousand People Plan” made by the mainland for overseas talent hunting.

When mainland enterprises are enhancing their science and technology competitiveness relying on overseas talents, the Taiwan science and technology industry is confined by problems of expensing employee bonus, taxing stock bonus according to the market price, etc., which make many employees of this industry question how can bosses of Taiwan enterprises keep their employees and their wages?

The “108 Heroes” event of the Epistar is only an epitome of the competition threat that the Taiwan science and technology industry are facing. In the LED industry, brain drain not only exists in Epistar. In fact, mainland enterprises also poached employees of the upstream epitaxial factory, midstream packaging factory and downstream lighting module factory. Compared to the matter that foreign merchants established R&D center in Taiwan in the past, the mainland enterprise poaching storm arouses more concern, because the concept “If you do not go to the west now, the situation will be worse in the future” has already germinated in the Taiwan science and technology industry.

When the board of shareholders of Forepi became the first LED factory attracting mainland capital by agreeing to releasing some shares to their mainland competitor San’an, Jian Fengren, chairman of the board of Forepi, said “They have large amount of capital. To gain a chance of survival, we’d better cooperate with them instead of competing with them.” Lin Xiucheng, chairman of the board of San’an, also came to Taiwan and promised to the talents “I will make you happy.”

Taiwan enterprises are internationally developing, so are the talents. Policies can confine enterprises, but not the talents and wages. The tragedy of brain drain happened to the Taiwan science and technology enterprises originated from the so called science and technology start-ups which have become the targets of the hatred toward the rich created by ideology.

The development plan of emerging industry of the mainland listed the science and technology industry as the key plan of the Eleventh Five Year Plan and the Twelfth Five Year Plan, implemented the “thousand people plan” from year 2008 to year 2011, and encouraged mainland science and technology enterprises to hunt talents overseas, so as to enhance competitiveness of mainland-funded enterprises on the international stage.

Mainland enterprises spent large amount of money on borrowing overseas talents, including the mainland mobile phone factory Xiaomi, which has recently spent large amount of money on poaching Hugo Barra, vice director of Android product marketing of the American enterprise Google. It’s not strange that nowadays working in the mainland is no longer betrayal but a springboard to the international stage in the eyes of employees of Taiwan science and technology factories.

But Taiwan once viewed the science and technology start-ups as an unreasonable well paid group in a long time, and thus implemented measures such as expensing employee bonus, taxing stock bonus according to the market price. For international science and technology enterprises in great favor of keeping talents by bonus system, “low wage system” is the fatal factor for keeping talents.

The “Ten Thousand People Plan” of the mainland has been implemented for only a year. The concept “Go now, or the situation will be worse” is being hotly discussed in the science and technology industry. How many Taiwan science and technology enterprises will encounter brain drain after this spring festival? What else contribution can the policy “keep but not attack” of the Taiwan government make to enhancing international competitiveness of Taiwan enterprises?

China Mainland LED enterprises coming to Taiwan for talent hunting - Taiwan enterprises may face talent shortage