Have you ever considered working as a caretaker in Taiwan? If so, you will find the article useful. A caretaker job typically involves looking after properties, individuals or assets, depending on what tasks your employer gives you. Usually, as a caretaker, you live on the premises you are assigned to work on.
In this article, an OFW in Taiwan shares her salary as a caretaker. She also talks about her deductions and bonuses, among others. This information is useful in case you want to know what to expect in deciding whether you wish to pursue a career in Taiwan or not.
Disclaimer: The information posted here is based on the personal experiences shared by the OFW in the video below. Please let this post serve as a guide only. If you have specific questions, you may ask the OFW by commenting on their video on their accounts.
Working as a Caretaker in Taiwan: Is the Salary Worth it?
The following information is shared by an OFW YouTuber with the YouTube channel Bon Journey. You can watch the full video in the link embedded below:
Ibonnie Angcos is an OFW in Taiwan, working as a caretaker. The following is a summary of the information she shared in the video above.
Role of a Caretaker
Caretakers generally have a wide range of tasks, but in this particular case, she mentioned that they take care of individuals, including the elderly, the young, children with special needs, and the like.
Their primary work is indeed taking care of people. In fact, some of the things she does in her caretaker work in Taiwan resemble that of tasks performed by caregivers. Indeed, they are called caretaker caregivers sometimes.
Caretaker jobs are highly varied in Taiwan. What you do as a caretaker may vary depending on who you take care of. The family employer you work for is also different from the families that other caretakers work for. Indeed, the situation is quite different for each caretaker working in Taiwan.
Here are some specific examples of individuals you might handle as a caretaker in Taiwan as mentioned by Ibonnie:
Individuals in nasogastric intubation (NG tube) – those with a plastic tube inserted through the nose, past the throat and towards the stomach. These people require the tube so that drugs or food can be administered to them.
Patients in hospitals – you can be assigned to work as a caretaker for a patient, especially those that rely on nasal cannulas for supplemental oxygen or increased airflow.
Alzheimer’s disease patients – this is specifically mentioned in the video as one of the patients you might handle as a caretaker in Taiwan.
Children with special needs – the OFW in the YouTube video mentioned that she is taking care of a special child, actually a grown man that’s already 53 years old but has special needs.
Because of the variety of the jobs you can handle, and because of the possibility that you will be dealing with elderly, some caretakers in Taiwan actually don’t sleep during the night. They have to stay awake in a kind of like a graveyard shift scenario, wherein they just sleep during the day.
In some cases, you have to deal with putting your patients on a wheel chair from the bed, then letting them do what they need to do, and then lifting them up again from their wheel chair and back to their bed. For this and many other tasks, you need to have the strength to carry that weight.
The caretaker in the video mentioned that she is already working for her second employer. Her former employer made her take care of an elderly who is still relatively healthy and strong, despite being 93 years old.
While the child she is taking care right now has special needs, she says she has no problems taking care of the child. The child goes to school from Monday to Friday, and she only gets to take care of the child during Friday evening to Monday morning. She also spends extra caretaking time during holidays and during days when her patient is sick.
The point is that she is thankful that so far, she hasn’t had to deal with difficult situations yet in terms of handling patients.
In most cases, that all boils down to luck. If you’re lucky, your employers will be kind to you. If you are dealing with the elderly, consider yourself fortunate if they can still walk and are basically still physically and mentally active.
Other Roles of a Caretaker
Aside from taking care of individuals, as a caretaker, she also does work around the house. Here are some of her other responsibilities:
- Wash dishes;
- Cook;
- Do the laundry;
- Clean the house; and
- Do anything else the employer asks her to do.
Having said that, there are limitations to what a caretaker can do. Here are some examples:
As a caretaker, you are not allowed to do work in the farm. There are some employers, though, who violate this rule, according to our YouTube vlogger, but this is against the rule. If this happens to you, then you can complain it to the government, or you can ask for additional pay.
You are also not allowed to work in the restaurant. She was asked to do this by her first employer. However, she acknowledged that her work was as a caretaker, and she could essentially complain to her broker or to the government’s Labor department.
Basic Salary of a Caretaker
So how much does a caretaker in Taiwan own? According to Ibonnie, she has a basic salary of 17,000 NTD per month. That is equivalent to around 29,000 Philippine Pesos depending on the exchange rate.
She also mentioned that there is an assigned day off for employees in Taiwan, and that is every Sunday. However, she said that employers in the country rarely give Sunday day offs to care takers. In her case, she is only given a once a month day off.
Overtime Pay
If your employer doesn’t give you a day off, or if you choose not to have a day off yourself, then you get additional pay.
That is, you get overtime pay if you work on Sundays. That amounts to 567 NTD per Sunday. If you work four Sundays a month, you get times four of that, or 2,268 NTD additional income per month.
Adding this to your basic salary, you actually get a monthly pay of 19,268 NTD, or give or take 33,000 Philippine Pesos per month.
Salary Deductions
You will not get this salary in full though, because there are several deductions. Aside from your daily needs, the following will be deduced from your monthly income:
- Broker’s fee – For your first year as a caretaker, you pay 1800 NTD per month for this fee. For your second year, the pay is reduced to 1700 NTD per month. For the third year, you will be paying 1500 NTD per month.
- Health insurance – you pay 310 NTD per month for health insurance.
- Taking into account all these deductions, your net salary is now at 17,158 NTD, which is close to a little more than 29,300 Philippine Pesos per month.
Basic Tips on How to Apply in Taiwan
If you are interested in applying as a caretaker in Taiwan, here is one very important tip that our YouTuber shared: get a legitimate agency, one that is approved or has connections with the POEA.
Here are some of the requirements you may need to submit to a reputable agency before you can proceed to the next application steps:
- Passport
- NSO Birth certificate
- College diploma
- Transcript of Records
- NBI Clearance
- IDs such as SSS, Pag-IBIG Member, PhilHealth, UMID, GSIS, etc.
- TIN ID
- Certificate of Employment
- Other valid IDs
Once you submit these requirements, all you have to do then is wait as the agency processes your application.
Meanwhile, your employer will have already processed the work permit, which is a letter from the government of Taiwan permitting you to be employed in the country. This work permit is a requirement for your resident visa application.
Indeed, you need a visa to be able to go to Taiwan. The requirements for having a visa may include: application form duly filled, 2 passport photos, passport photocopy, invitation letter from the agency, employment letter from the agency, business documents, other documents required by the agency, and a visa fee of 65 dollars. This rate may be different now; its best to go to the POEA website or other official websites for reference.
Working in Taiwan, or any other country for that matter, is a huge decision. To be an OFW, you have to sacrifice a lot. You have to be away from your family and live in a foreign country, trying to immerse in a new culture. But by doing so, this signals that you have big dreams for yourself and your family, and that is truly commendable.