ABSTRACT
The problem of wage stagnation has persisted for more than a decade and has become one of the major issues in Taiwan. There are many studies that specifically examine this important issue but none of them look into the structure of Taiwan’s economy, i.e., from the perspective of the SMEs, which also constitute the backbone of Taiwan. In this study, we find that most of the low-paid jobs are in SMEs and those who work in SMEs are more likely to be trapped there and to have very little chance of being hired by other larger enterprises throughout their entire professional careers in Taiwan. As such, the issue of low wages will for them be likely to become a chronic and even a career problem. SMEs’ low profitability and lack of global competitiveness, workers’ low English proficiency, rapid expansion of higher education and atypical and foreign-worker problems are all identified as major factors that contribute to the low-wage dilemma in Taiwan. Relevant policies should, therefore, be focused on these issues.
