The unemployment rate last month was unchanged at 4.18 percent from the previous month, maintaining the lowest level since August 2008, as stronger demand from the service sector offset weakness in the manufacturing industry, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
On an annual basis, the unemployment rate was 0.46 percentage points lower than the 4.64 percent posted in January last year, the directorate said in a statement.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, a more accurate indicator of the long-term trend, dropped a slight 0.02 percentage points from the previous month to 4.19 percent last month, the statement said.
“The labor market has remained stable, as reflected by the unemployment rate over the past few months,” Chen Min (陳憫), a deputy director at the statistics agency, told a press conference.
The total number of unemployed increased by a marginal 1,000 last month from December to 472,000, according to the statement.
However, labor market demand trends between the manufacturing sector and the service sector differed last month, Chen said.
The number of people employed in the manufacturing sector fell by 3,000 last month from a month earlier, as a weaker outlook amid global economic uncertainties drove down demand for workers, DGBAS data showed.
However, demand in the service sector remained buoyant, with the number of employed in the wholesale and retail industries rising by 5,000 last month, statistics showed.
Henry Ho (何啟聖), a public relations director at 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行), said he took a conservative view of the unemployment rate for this month and next month.
Although the unemployment rate has remained stable, Ho said that it may take people who left positions after the Lunar New Year a little longer than usual to find a new one, putting pressure on the jobless rate.
The DGBAS yesterday also unveiled its latest data on salaries, with its statistics showing that workers earned an average of NT$36,803 (US$1,240) a month last year, up 1.47 percent from a year earlier.
However, excluding the 1.42 percent growth in consumer prices, the nation’s real average wages only rose 0.04 percent last year, DGBAS said.
When bonuses and other forms of compensation were factored in, the average salary last year climbed 2.73 percent from a year ago to NT$45,642, marking the highest level in history, DGBAS statistics showed.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job