TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Council of Agriculture (COA) said on Monday (March 14) that it had approved the entry applications of about 2,400 migrant agricultural workers, CNA reported.

It’s expected that applicants who meet Taiwan’s COVID-19 prevention standards will enter the country in about two weeks and begin to replenish the domestic workforce in the agricultural industry, which has been challenged by labor shortages, the report said.

Tsai Pei-chun (蔡佩君), executive secretary at the COA's Personnel Office, pointed out to CNA in a telephone interview that Taiwan had stopped importing migrant workers almost one year ago during Taiwan's first major COVID-19 outbreak. The Ministry of Labor (MOL) on Feb. 15 reopened the country’s borders to migrant workers from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, Tsai noted.

However, she said Indonesia does not allow its people to work as agricultural laborers overseas, and therefore there will be no Indonesians among this group of 2,400 migrant agricultural workers, per CNA.

The 2,400 migrants will be assigned to work in a variety of agricultural sectors based on labor demand statistics, the COA official said. Among them, 1,000 will work in the animal husbandry sector, 180 in the land-based fish farming sector, 920 as seasonal workers in all agricultural sectors, and 300 in the agro-food industry, she added.