Taiwan’s minimum wage to cross NT$30,000 as AI boom lifts growth

Taiwan’s minimum monthly wage will rise above NT$30,000 (US$945.02) for the first time next year, after the Ministry of Labour’s Minimum Wage Deliberation Committee agreed to lift it from NT$29,500 (US$928.17) to NT$30,900 (US$972.22).

The 4.745% increase also raises the minimum hourly wage from NT$196 (US$6.17) to NT$205 (US$6.45). Both require Cabinet approval and are scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2027. Labour Minister Hung Sun-han said the NT$1,400 monthly rise was among the largest in a decade. If approved, it would mark the 11th consecutive annual hike.

Around 2.61 million workers are expected to benefit, including about 2.2 million Taiwanese and 414,400 migrant workers. The increase excludes migrant workers employed as live-in caregivers or domestic helpers, as they are not covered by the Labour Standards Act.

Committee members representing labour, business, academia and government broadly agreed that a projected 2.07% rise in the consumer price index should be fully reflected. They differed, however, on how to share the gains of an economy that the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics expects to grow by 11.05% this year.

Labour representatives wanted those gains shared between workers and employers as far as possible, while employer representatives highlighted uneven development across industries. Much of the growth has come from high-tech and AI-related sectors, Hung said, while traditional industries, service providers and smaller businesses have faced different conditions.

“We cannot simply look at the GDP growth figure alone,” he said, noting that employers’ ability to pay also had to be weighed.

Positions were far apart when talks began, and the meeting ran longer than in previous years before both sides made concessions. The final figure also fulfils Premier Cho Jung-tai’s April pledge that the monthly minimum would exceed NT$30,000 next year.

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The scale of that AI-led growth was reflected in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) latest outlook, which raised its 2026 GDP growth forecast for Taiwan by 1.5 percentage points to 11%. The economy expanded 14.1% in H1 2026, its fastest first-half growth in 50 years, as technology exports jumped 65%. Private consumption grew nearly 6%, supported in part by wage growth spilling over from the technology sector into other industries.

The ADB expects growth to ease to 5% in 2027 and kept its 2026 inflation forecast at 2%. It warned, however, that a prolonged Middle East conflict or worse-than-expected El Niño conditions could dampen AI investment and demand for Taiwan’s exports, reported Focus Taiwan.