Negotiations to bring migrant workers from India to Taiwan are in the final stages, sources tell Domino Theory, with at least one Taiwanese airline planning to open direct Taipei Delhi flights this summer and hopes that the first workers will begin arriving as soon as the end of this year or early next year.
Taiwan and India signed a memorandum of understanding two years ago with the goal of importing laborers from India to work in Taiwan’s manufacturing, construction and home care sectors. Taiwan faces persistent labor shortage caused by a rapidly aging population and declining birthrate, with the National Development Council projecting a deficit of 400,000 workers by 2030.
The first tranche of Indian migrant workers could arrive in Taiwan “as early as the end of 2026,” said a source familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be named because talks are still ongoing.
The agreement Taiwan and India signed in 2024 was a framework, the source explained, and both sides have been “working carefully to finalize the regulatory aspects, worker protection aspects, and basic things like what the frameworks are going to look like.”
Progress on bringing the workers over stalled for the majority of 2025 until January this year, when Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor said that a delegation visited India to understand the hiring process of Taiwanese businesses in India, the job market, and the regulatory aspects of Indian workers going overseas.
According to records from four rounds of “Taiwan-India labor cooperation” meetings released by Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor, the original plan was to allow a small-scale introduction of Indian workers in the manufacturing sector and consider including the construction sector as well.
The ministry also discussed a limited pilot program for household caregivers. In the November 2024 meeting, the decision was made to open the manufacturing sector to 1,000 Indian migrant workers, with a goal of 5% being directly hired by employers instead of using the brokerage system, under which migrants pay heavy fees to private employment agencies.
However, the meeting minutes from November 25, 2025 show that although an agreement was reached with the Indian state of Mizoram to open access for manufacturing workers, no concrete timeline or quota was set.
A senior level pilot at Eva Air told Domino Theory that direct flights between Taiwan and Delhi will start “around July” to support Taiwan’s labor agreement with India.
“When a new route is introduced, it’s usually four flights per a week,” the pilot said, adding that the airline might use Airbus’s A330-300 instead of Boeing 787s.
“EVA Air will actively evaluate whether to open new destinations or increase the number of flights on existing routes, depending on market demand and fleet capacity,” the airline’s PR department said in a statement.
A spokesperson for China Airlines declined to comment for this story.
Anna Shiau (蕭璦娜), who operates Summit Manpower, a job placement agency based in Taipei, told Domino Theory that the government’s plan to bring in 5% of workers through direct hiring was “overly idealistic.” There is “no system, no institution” in place, she said. She added that direct-hire programs, which bypass brokers, make it harder for factories to manage their workers.
Recruiting agencies in India have posted advertisements for jobs in Taiwan on their websites and Instagram.
Tarmac manpower, a job placement consultancy in Mumbai, refers to Taiwan in a post on its website as a “thriving economic environment, strategic location and a travel hub, and a place for technological excellence and innovation.”
But a representative from Tarmac told Domino Theory that while more than 500 candidates “from all over India” have contacted his company to apply for jobs in Taiwan, “there are currently no requests from employers in Taiwan.”
Last week the office of India’s representative in Taiwan posted a notice on its website warning people not to engage with agencies offering work in Taiwan because a labor cooperation agreement between Taiwan and India has not yet been established.
Several travel agents in the Delhi area who specialize in helping customers apply for visas to travel to Taiwan said they were aware of the memorandum of understanding between Taiwan and India but have not yet received any application from prospective workers.
“One reason is that Vietnam and Indonesia are providing blue collar people to Taiwan, and the second thing, we do not have good diplomatic relations between the countries,” said Ashok Kumar, who operates a visa and document service in Delhi. “And the third reason is because Indians are also not looking at it.”
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