Middle-aged Filipina serves as role model to new caregivers

A 51-year-old unemployed Filipina has become a caregiver with help from Taiwan’s Workforce Development Agency and receives a monthly grant to encourage her work in a sector short of employees.

The Filipina Annie, who lived with and was married to a Taiwanese man for more than a decade, had difficulty finding a job because she cannot write Chinese, Udn Daily News reported.

In August 2017 she visited the Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan regional branch of the Workforce Development Agency and was referred to a nursing home in Chaiyi County in southwest Taiwan to be a caregiver – to take care of eight to 10 elderly people.

It was recommended that she should apply for a government incentive grant for middle-aged workers in fields that have a severe shortage of workers.

Annie was highly praised for her personal attributes – being a responsible and caring worker. She was quickly appointed as an instructor to coach new caregivers in the elderly-care facility.

Ke Cheng-fang, chief of the Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan regional branch, said any unemployed people who are referred by the state agency and willing to take a dirty, dangerous or demanding blue-collar job, or be a caregiver in institutions – and stay for at least 30 days – is entitled to the government grant.

Workers usually receive NT$5,000 (US$169) per month for the first six months of employment, and NT$6,000 ($203) per month from their seventh to twelfth months, and  NT$7,000 ($237) a month up to their eighteenth month – meaning a total of NT$108,000 ($3,655) could be awarded.