Taipei, July 15 (CNA) The registration cutoff date for migrant workers wanting to compete in New Taipei's 2022 Labor Star Singing Competition has been extended two weeks, according to the organizers, citing hopes of attracting more people to sign up.
This year the annual competition includes a category for migrant workers aged 18 and above who have lived or worked in the city in the past three years, for the first time in its 16-year history.
The final date to sign up for the category has been extended from July 15 to July 29, New Taipei's Labor Affairs Department said in a statement on Friday.
Other categories in the competition are for Taiwan nationals -- the "Vitality star group" for people 18-45 and the "Charming star group" for those over 46.
"We want to give more opportunities to migrant workers because some might still be a bit shy about competing," Lee Wen-huan (李文煥), chief of the department's Labor Education and Recreation Division, told CNA.
The competition this year carries total prize money of NT$300,000 (US$10,016) and also asks migrant workers to sing one of 140 pre-selected Mandarin and Taiwanese songs in the preliminary round.
When asked if more migrant workers would participate if there were no restrictions on the language in which songs must be sung, Lee said the whole focus of the program is to promote the use of Mandarin and Taiwanese.
"That is our policy, it is to promote the use of those locally spoken languages by migrant workers so that they integrate better into our society. It is also to encourage them to learn those languages through songs," Lee said.
As for the competition itself, preliminary rounds for migrant workers are to be held on Aug. 7 when they will be judged on pitch skills (40%), tone and emotion (40%), showmanship (10%), and styling (10%), the Labor Affairs Department said.
The top 20 migrant worker contestants will advance to the semifinals, which take place on Aug. 28, according to the city department.
The top 10 will make it into the finals on Sept. 25, where the champion will receive a NT$30,000 prize, and prizes of NT$20,000, NT$15,000, NT$10,000, and NT$6,000 will go the next top four finishers.
The remaining top 10 finishers will each get a prize of NT$3,000.
There was a total of 87,782 migrant workers in New Taipei at the end of May, according to Ministry of Labor statistics.
