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Digital Content, Green Industry, Social Work

Where the Jobs Are in Taiwan

Where the Jobs Are in Taiwan

Source:Domingo Chung

Stop trying to find a job in an industry flooded with people! It's better to focus on emerging industries and services that are hungry for talent. What are the sectors in dire need of skilled personnel? And what are the skills students need to learn?

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Where the Jobs Are in Taiwan

By Shiau-Jing Ding, Shu-ren Koo
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 451 )

A few years ago, Lee, a young graduate of the Department of Life Science at National Taiwan University, decided to change directions. Reaching the conclusion that he didn't like research, but had an interest in ecology and the environment, he enrolled in the Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering. After getting his advanced degree, he found a job, with the help of a friend, at AU Optronics (AUO) in the Hsinchu Science Park.

Lee's work at the LCD display maker, however, has little in common with traditional engineering. He works as a green product engineer in the "Green Product Management Department."

The department's task is to calculate how many resources AUO and its suppliers consume and how much waste they produce in the production process. With these data AUO can determine the total amount of carbon emissions produced by its products – what is commonly known as their carbon footprint.

Work at the green products management department, which was established in 2007, does not fit the stereotypical image of nerdy engineers hovering over machines and instruments. And calculating carbon footprints is only one of its many tasks.

AUO is not the only company focusing on green management.

One after the other, Acer, Asus, Delta Electronics and other IT companies have established similar departments. They are aware that consumers want environmentally friendly products and that environmental regulations in major export markets are becoming increasingly stricter. As a result, demand for green personnel – people with the skills and knowledge to make a positive impact on the environment – is rapidly growing.

"It was only after I started working here that I realized, job opportunities aren't as rare as I imagined. On the contrary, more and more companies are establishing departments like this," Lee says. Some of his former classmates have found jobs in similar departments in other companies.

Demand Outstrips Supply

A new wave of talent shortages is currently building. Green engineering is one of these fields where work opportunities abound.

The number of students graduating with degrees in environmental studies jumped eight-fold between 2001 and 2009, but this number amounts to less than 900 university graduates per year. Not only in Taiwan, but around the globe, corporate demand for green talent continues to grow.

The South Korean government plans to train 100,000 green professionals by 2013 and to create 200,000 jobs in that area over the coming five years. In 2008 the United Nations estimated that investment in the renewable energy sector alone will reach US$630 billion by 2030 with at least 20 million new jobs being created.

Noticing the rising demand for green personnel, the Taiwanese government has joined forces with academia to draw up a new program for cultivating professionals in this field.

In 2007 the Ministry of Education launched its Pioneer Program for Green Technology, in cooperation with a number of universities. The program, which is administered by National Central University, aims to establish relevant courses and programs at universities across Taiwan. Thanks to its leading role, National Central University has already established a "green MBA" and a "green EMBA" program, which will start with the new academic year this autumn. Over the past several years, green courses have also mushroomed at other Taiwanese universities. So far some 20,000 students have taken green courses as electives.

Exactly what skills do green professionals need to possess?

Taking as an example the job of green product engineer, Kuo Chun-nan, head of the AU Optronics Human Resources Strategy Department, advises that on top of expertise in conventional engineering, candidates need to have experience and know-how in the fields of quality assurance and environmental auditing.

"But what's more important is a green attitude, a green mindset," Kuo points out. At AUO all employees need to understand that saving energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions is not just about cutting costs, but that these factors must already be taken into consideration at the stage of product design.

Green Mindset, Interdisciplinary Approach Wanted

The green university programs are a response to greening mindsets. Most green studies programs start out with courses in astronomy, the origin of life, and global ecology. Steven Shy, who heads the Pioneer Program for Green Technology advisory office, hopes that once students have become familiar with environmental issues through such courses, they will be able to consider the environmental impact of product design and manufacturing.

But on top of a green mindset, green talent must also have the capability to work across different academic and professional fields.

Steven Shy believes that an engineer also needs to be trained in "green accounting" to be able to calculate the environmental cost of product design and manufacturing. Therefore, current green programs are interdisciplinary or even cater to students from different universities. The green MBA and green EMBA programs at National Central University, for instance, give students a broad grounding in the humanities, natural sciences and business management.

However, green talent is not the only talent that is currently in short supply in the Taiwanese labor market. The digital content industry, in particular the areas of game animation and mobile applications, continues to suffer from a talent shortage.

Several game and animation companies, which spend huge amounts on celebrity endorsements and are posting even higher revenues than display makers, cannot find enough animators.

Liu Shu-hsian, in charge of talent cultivation at the Digital Content Institute, points out that although more than 40 university departments related to digital games and animation have been founded over the past seven years, "the number of graduates from such departments can't satisfy demand from game and animation companies."

The main reason why supply cannot keep pace with demand is that many game companies have expanded in recent years and have started cooperating with foreign firms, and even companies in China. In order to complete a single game project within a year, one or two hundred animators are often not enough.

Animators and digital content creators are also in high demand at handset contract manufacturers, as well as companies that create game software and applications for smartphones, iPads and other handheld digital devices.

While this industry has not yet grown very big in Taiwan, Liu Shu-hsian explains that specifically because the field lacks visibility, schools offer almost no relevant courses, and as a result only a few handset engineers are able to design programs for handset applications, and even fewer product managers are able to develop business models to extend the product's scope.

Like green talent, people in the digital content industry need to be able to work across different fields and industries, which is yet another reason why such talent is few and far between.

Cindy Chen, country manager of human resources solution provider Adecco Taiwan, notes that product managers that develop profit models for handset and electronic book applications need to be familiar with the operation of the hard devices in question and also be creative marketers. "Such professionals with integrated skill sets are very hard to find," she concludes.

The talent shortage in the digital industry is not likely to end any time soon. In 2008 and 2009 some 1,600 positions in the digital content industry could not be filled for lack of relevant talent, according to estimates by the Institute for Information Industry (III). The situation is expected to worsen in 2010. (See Table)

Social Worker Shortage

The green and digital content industries face talent droughts because they are emerging industries with a growing demand for personnel. But in Taiwan another industry in which demand outpaces supply is social work, which has long been ignored by mainstream society.

Indeed, Taiwan has faced a severe shortage of social workers for quite some time.

According to research by Lu Pau-ching, professor at the Graduate Institute of Social Work at National Chengchi University, Taiwan will need at least 9,700 social workers in 2010. Yet islandwide only around 6,200 professional social workers were working in both public and private institutions at the end of 2009, according to statistics by the Ministry of the Interior. This means that 3,500 more social workers are needed. But over the past five years the number of professional social workers rose by just 500 per year.

The overwhelming demand for social workers is reflected in their job-placement levels. Graduates from the social work departments of many universities enjoy employment rates of 100 percent. But as Wang Ching-wan from the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation points out, the number of social workers is growing slowly, because many social work students switch their majors and graduate in other disciplines such as business or law or become teachers, and of those who graduate only a few actually stay with the social work profession. Only 15 percent of Lu Pau-ching's classmates who graduated from the social work department of National Taiwan University ten years ago still work in social services today.

Political parties try to win voter support with the prospects of a stable society. Social stability is also important for the government to consolidate its power. Therefore, the government budget for social services rose in 2009 by 4 percent, even though overall social welfare funding shrank by 13.3 percent.

These funds were not only used to hire social workers that specialize in domestic violence prevention, elderly care and youth counseling, but also for post-disaster counseling by government-commissioned private social welfare organizations.

Running contrary to public perception, there are some areas where labor supply does not meet market demand, both in emerging and in conventional industries. But National Central University vice president Joseph S. Lee advises students, rather than simply choosing those programs that are popular at the moment, it is also important to cultivate the ability to work across disciplines, to learn by oneself and to solve problems, because that will be the core of competitiveness in the future.

"The future trend definitely won't be that people do what they studied in university," Lee contends. He has observed that many schools overemphasize specialization, but don't teach their students how to learn. Since university education is too narrow, graduates don't know how to change their profession or how to use their skills in another field of expertise.

As talent-starved industries such as green industries and the digital content industry want talent with interdisciplinary skills, a broad interdisciplinary university education will become the trend for professionals in emerging industries.

Translated from the Chinese by Susanne Ganz

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