Article 5 Measures to Safeguard Various Rights by strict employment regulations and residency management for blue-collar workers. These policies were aimed at limiting the stay of migrant workers to prevent them from becoming permanent residents, a practice that closely mirrors the guest worker system.79 However, recent shifts in the employment preferences of Taiwanese citizens, coupled with Taiwan’s aging population, have led to an urgent need to re-evaluate Taiwan’s population policies. A newly implemented program for the retention and long-term employment of migrant workers allows a limited number of blue-collar migrant workers to transition into mid-level technical roles. The program aims to retain 80,000 mid-level technical workers; 2,056 have already received approval.80 This marks Taiwan’s first step toward transitioning its immigration policies. 63. Recommendations: General Recommendation No. 30 calls for ensuring that specific groups of non-citizens are not discriminated against when obtaining citizenship or naturalization. The government should acknowledge that migrant workers are no longer just supplementary manpower and should 79 Foreign low-skilled laborers are positioned by policy as guest workers who are not allowed to remain for long. This policy is characterized by the strict management of blue-collar workers’ residency and is designed to ensure that foreign workers can only stay and work in the country for a short period without becoming long-term residents and workers. The first systematic introduction of a temporary foreign labor force was the guestworker program implemented in Germany in 1890. In Taiwan, the guest worker system is reflected in the management regulations for blue-collar migrant workers. These workers face restrictions on the duration of their working period in Taiwan, limitations on their professions and industries, quota-based limitations on the number of laborers that can be brought in, and limitations on the home countries they can be hired from, and they are not allowed to arbitrarily change their employer or place of work (Tseng, Y.F. (2004); Expressing Nationalist Politics in the Guestworker Program: Taiwan’s Recruitment of Foreign Labor . Taiwanese 80 Journal of Sociology 32, 31–42.) Since April 30, 2022, foreigners have been allowed to engage in intermediate technical work. Migrant workers with over six years of experience in Taiwan who possess certain skills and relevant qualifications, may be employed in intermediate technical work upon application by their employers. Young migrant workers with excellent potential for development are encouraged to further their education while employed, and after obtaining an associate degree in Taiwan, they can apply for intermediate technical work. Overseas students who have obtained an associate degree or higher in Taiwan form another source of intermediate technical manpower. The salaries of intermediate technical personnel differ depending on whether they are in the industrial or social welfare field. In the industrial category, a regular monthly salary exceeding NT$33,000 or an annual total salary above NT$500,000 is required. In the social welfare category, caregivers in institutions must have a regular monthly salary of more than NT$29,000, whereas home caregivers are given a total monthly salary exceeding NT$24,000. According to the Ministry of Labor’s letter dated January 13, 2023, as of December 31, 2022, there had been 3,389 applicants for intermediate technical work, with 2,056 individuals approved. Of these, 975 were in the industrial category and 1,081 were in the social welfare category. 45