Semiconductor firm ASE unveils dorm for female foreign workers

2017/04/06

Kaohsiung-based ASE Group recently inaugurated a dormitory for the company’s female foreign workers in the southern port city, underscoring the local semiconductor heavyweight’s commitment to enhancing the well-being of its employees.
 
 Converted from a warehouse just outside the Nanzih Export Processing Zone, the NT$1 billion (US$92.96 million) facility is an eight-floor green building that accommodates up to 3,000 individuals.
 
 Featuring 132 rooftop solar panels, the complex can lower annual power consumption by 75 percent and electricity bills by NT$8 million compared to a typical building of its size, while the installed rainwater harvesting system can reduce water usage by 5,100 metric tons.
 
 Aside from its environmentally friendly features, the building also comes with a prayer room, medical center and recreational space. A digital interface in the building facilitates services such as package drop-off and delivery, maintenance requests, shopping, transportation and travel arrangements.
 
 According to ASE, the world’s leading provider of semiconductor packaging and testing services, among the Kaohsiung plant’s 25,000 employees, 3,700 are foreign nationals, including 3,200 female workers mostly from the Philippines.
 
“It’s important that we create a living environment catering to the particular needs of these individuals, as they are great assets to our company and play a critical role in keeping the plant running around the clock,” said Sunny Li, the company’s senior director of human resources and public relations.
 
 According to Li, ASE is a stout supporter of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition Code of Conduct, which refers to a set of standards on social, environmental and ethical issues in the electronics industry supply chain.
 
“The new facility represents our appreciation for the contributions of these immigrant workers and effort in meeting the EICC’s standards to ensure safe working conditions and respectful treatment of employees, as well as environmentally responsible business operations.”
 
Li said so far 1,500 women have moved into the dormitory, with the remaining set to be relocated in the following months. She added that plans are also in the works to establish a similar facility for male foreign workers.
 
 The executive said she expects the immigrant workers to bring in additional business for local merchants and transform the neighborhood into a new business district.
 
 According to statistics compiled by the Ministry of the Interior, there were around 570,000 foreign laborers in Taiwan as of February 2017, with 61.52 percent of them immigrants from Southeast Asian nations working in the manufacturing sector.
 
 Created in 1984, ASE Group has manufacturing facilities in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and mainland China other than the Kaohsiung plant.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=113464)