It was in the mid-1970s, with industry yet to fully upgrade and the proportion of people working in manual jobs rapidly falling, that foreign laborers began arriving in Taiwan in numbers, overstaying their tourist visas and working illegally. In 1989, needing to overcome the shortage of labor available for national infrastructure developments, the Executive Yuan approved a package of measures legalizing the presence of overseas workers on these and other important projects.
在產業尚未完全升級，勞動人口已大幅減少的情形下，早在民國七十年代中期就有不少外籍勞工持短期觀光簽證來台，逾期停留、非法打工，而行政院為因應國家重大工程勞力短缺問題，在七十八年核定「十四項重要工程人力需求因應措施方案」，更使工地外勞合法化。