Taipei, Sept. 19 (CNA) The Control Yuan, Taiwan's highest watchdog body, said Thursday that it has launched an investigation into the high incidence of occupational injury among migrant workers in the country.

In a statement, Control Yuan members Wang Yu-Ling (王幼玲) and Wang Mei-yu (王美玉) said Ministry of Labor (MOL) statistics show that foreign employees in the country's manufacturing industry suffer disabling injuries in the workplace at twice the rate of Taiwanese factory workers.

In view of that data, the Control Yuan members said, they will conduct an investigation into the situation and make recommendations for reducing occupational injuries among foreign workers in the manufacturing industry.

According to the MOL statistics, the rate of occupational injuries that resulted in disability among migrant factory workers last year was 6.7 injuries per 10,000 workers, while among Taiwanese employees in the same sector the rate was 3.1 injuries per 10,000 workers.

In 2017, the rate was 6.2 disabling injuries per 10,000 workers among migrant employees in the manufacturing sector, and 3.3 per 10,000 among Taiwanese workers, the Control Yuan said, citing the labor ministry data.

The MOL statistics also show that over the past 10 years, the rate of disabling injuries among migrant factory workers has been between 13.9 and 6.2 per 10,000 employees, according to the Control Yuan.

In the statement, the two Control Yuan members said migrant workers are often hired for jobs that Taiwanese are unwilling to do and are at high risk of injury in the workplace.

Last month, a Filipina worker died as a result of a chemical spill in a factory in Miaoli, the Control Yuan noted.

Deserie Castro Tagubasi, 29, died on Aug. 28, hours after she accidentally spilled a container of hydrofluoric acid on her legs while on duty at an electronics plant operated by LED maker Tyntek Corp. in Jhunan Science Park.