The level of joblessness last month climbed for the fourth straight month to 4.4 percent, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday, adding that the nation’s unemployment rate might improve this month based on historical experience.
The rate of unemployment — an indicator of slowing economic performance — last month marked its highest level since August last year and was up from 4.31 percent in July, the agency said in its monthly report.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, a more reliable indicator of the long-term trend, was up 0.04 percentage points from the previous month to 4.29 percent last month, the report said.
“The seasonal effect continued to be the main factor that pushed up the jobless rate last month,” DGBAS deputy director Chen Min (陳憫) told a press conference.
A majority of the college graduates entering the labor market have done so in the past few months, but some have not received job offers yet, which is why unemployment has continued to climb, Chen said.
The slowing economic sentiment was another factor that helped drag down the labor market as a conservative attitude among employers made them less likely to recruit personnel, including first-time jobseekers, Chen added.
The latest data showed that 502,000 people were unemployed last month, an increase of 12,000 from the previous month, with the number of first-time jobseekers failing to find employment rising by 8,000.
The increase was also reflected in growing youth unemployment, with joblessness among 15-to-24-year-olds rising 0.65 percentage points from July to 13.61 percent last month, its highest level this year, the report showed.
However, Chen said the historical trend in the rate of unemployment showed that the figure usually rose to its highest annual level in August and further improved in the following months.
This would indicate that this month’s jobless rate remains an important indicator to evaluate the current national labor market situation, Chen added.
Tony Phoo (符銘財), a Taipei-based economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said that he expected the unemployment rate to show an improvement from this month, as exports return to a modest level of growth in the fourth quarter.
“Regardless of the impact of the seasonal effect, the employment situation has not improved over the past three months,” Phoo said in a telephone interview.
Phoo expected the unemployment rate could drop to between 4.2 percent and 4.3 percent by the end of this year, with job openings offered by the service sector and the financial industry leading the trend.
The DGBAS also released the latest salary data yesterday, which showed that national monthly salaries averaged NT$37,435 (US$1,270) in July, up 1.63 percent from a year ago.
However, when bonuses and other forms of compensation are included, the average monthly remuneration package showed a 0.44 percent markdown from a year earlier and stood at NT$42,535 in July, the data showed.
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS