Taiwan's chip plants run on migrant workers. Job brokers run their lives

Rest of World reports on the Filipino migrant workers who help operate Taiwan's semiconductor industry and the labor brokers who mediate nearly every part of their lives. Interviews with more than twenty workers and experts describe recruitment fees, crowded dormitories, curfews and broker control over jobs, documents, transportation, insurance and complaints. Some workers said these charges consumed a significant share of their wages or made changing employers nearly impossible.

The reporting connects the global demand for advanced chips to a labor system that can sharply limit individual mobility. Workers described alleged excessive bills, bribes and document withholding; some left authorized employment and entered undocumented work to escape the system. Industry participants noted that practices vary and some agencies disputed specific allegations, but the article shows how the benefits of the chip boom coexist with concentrated control over the people sustaining it.