TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's convenience store chains are increasingly turning to foreign workers and international students to fill staffing gaps, transforming the island's retail landscape amid a deepening labor shortage. The hiring trend reflects Taiwan's declining birthrate crisis, which reached just 134,856 babies born in 2024 after nine consecutive years of decline. One standout example is Vladimir Merard (馬洛迪), a Haitian doctoral student who has become a local favorite at his Taoyuan convenience store.
Merard has established deep roots in Taiwan over seven years while pursuing a doctoral degree in business administration at Ming Chuan University (銘傳大學). His trilingual fluency in English, French, and Chinese has proven invaluable in his convenience store role. The Haitian student has quickly mastered complex tasks within just one month, including preparing hot-pressed sandwiches, brewing coffee, managing deliveries, and operating photocopying equipment.
Taiwan's major convenience store chains have launched aggressive recruitment campaigns targeting international students and foreign workers. 7-ELEVEN has pioneered a specialized training program for international university students that achieves an impressive acceptance rate exceeding 80 percent. The retail giant attracts participants from numerous countries and plans to establish more than 10 dedicated "foreign student model stores" across Taiwan by year's end.
FamilyMart (全家) has embraced foreign labor on a massive scale too, employing over 500 full-time workers primarily from Vietnam and Myanmar. The chain utilizes multilingual training materials and flexible scheduling to accommodate diverse employees while addressing staffing pressures. Hi-Life (萊爾富) has similarly expanded recruitment efforts in recent years, actively hiring store managers and franchise owners from immigrant backgrounds to diversify its workforce.