Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, 50 percent of companies in Taiwan polled said they still had plans to recruit staff this year, with sales, marketing and engineering professionals being the most in demand, a survey showed yesterday.
Among the companies with recruitment plans this year, nearly 30 percent of them said they would begin hiring after the Lunar New Year holiday, between next month and April, online human resource agency 104 Job Bank (104 人力銀行) said yesterday.
Businesses in the finance and insurance, medical, education, law and accounting and construction industries showed the highest willingness to recruit more staff, the survey showed.
Nearly 40 percent of the businesses polled said they would continue to recruit for key positions, but they would streamline staff at the same time, it said.
Thirty-two percent of businesses polled would not fill vacancies, 18.3 percent planned to shed staff and 10 percent of businesses planned to increase staffing levels this year, the survey showed.
“Compared with October’s survey, the percentage of businesses that plan to only add staff went up by 3 percentage points, however, businesses that only plan to slash jobs has jumped by 10 percentage points, which shows that the volatility in the labor market is not likely to abate this year,” Monica Chiu (邱文仁), marketing director at 104 Job Bank, was quoted as saying.
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