Taoyuan recruits foreign graduate students as city bus drivers with subsidies up to NT$330,000
Taoyuan is opening its bus-driver hiring to foreign and overseas-Chinese graduates, a workaround for a labor shortage that has left bus companies unable to fill seats.
- Bus operators can't find enough drivers, so Taoyuan is extending its existing driver training-to-employment program to foreign graduates.
- Qualified applicants get up to NT$330,000 each, covering driving school, wages, mileage bonuses, licensing, and insurance.
- Candidates need a Taiwanese car license held for two years, then take commercial bus training and a Chinese-language test.
- The catch is time: post-graduation residency lasts two years, and training eats up six months, so subsidies only kick in after a full year on the job.
Outlook: Taoyuan is pressing the central government to create a longer-term work and residency path, since the current two-year window barely covers the training investment.