About 88 percent of soon-to-be college graduates are worried about the job opportunities they will encounter when they finish school in June, a local job bank said yesterday.
As employers battle declining business and refrain from hiring new recruits, 86 percent of students taking college majors traditionally considered recession-proof, such engineering, indicated that they felt stress and pessimism, compared to 67 percent just three months ago, the 1111 Job Bank said.
“Sixty-three percent of graduates from last year [2008] are still unemployed. Add that number to the mass exodus of new graduates this year and you get the idea,” said Ryan Wu (吳睿穎), chief operating officer of 1111 Job Bank.
While entry-level job seekers said they would be willing to lower their monthly salary expectations to NT$27,034 this year, Wu said 1111 Job Bank’s corporate clients were only willing to pay NT$24,986 a month.
Wu made the remarks as National Taiwan University held its annual campus recruiting event yesterday, which featured 168 participating companies compared to more than 200 last year, with a majority from the technology and financial services sectors.
Citibank representatives said the firm planned to increase local hiring, even though its parent Citigroup is in financial disarray and saw shares close last week at US$1.03 in New York trading.
In general, corporate representatives were reluctant to disclose what base salaries were and the number of positions open this year, while referring candidates to their online application sites.
With such bleak job prospects, Wu said job seekers should be open to employment outside Taiwan.
“Even if salary and expenses break even in the end, at least they would be gaining valuable work experiences,” he told the Taipei Times on the sideline of the campus job fair.
In January, 5.26 percent of college graduates were unemployed, compared to a 5.31 percent unemployment rate as a whole, the government’s latest unemployment data showed on Feb. 26.
Kilbinder Dosanjh, a senior economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), said Taiwan’s unemployment rate would surge to 10 percent by the end of the year, the Central News Agency reported on Feb. 21.
Wu said high unemployment was likely to persist for many more months and that the economy was much worse off than the government’s data showed.
The government’s unemployment rate is calculated to any person who is available to work and currently seeking work, but is without work.
“But this definition does not take into account hidden unemployment,” Wu said, referring to a group of people “working less than 35 hours per week, who are not putting their expertise to use and who are making less than NT$10,368 per month.”
In addition, Wu doubted the efficacy of consumer vouchers issued earlier this year.
“If the NT$82.9 billion [US$2.3 billion] budget had been spent on unemployment benefits, at least each person could minimally sustain themselves on NT$138,000 for a year or at least six months,” Wu said.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
EARLY TALKS: Measures under consideration include convincing allies to match US curbs, further restricting exports of AI chips or GPUs, and blocking Chinese investments US President Donald Trump’s administration is sketching out tougher versions of US semiconductor curbs and pressuring key allies to escalate their restrictions on China’s chip industry, an early indication the new US president plans to expand efforts that began under former US president Joe Biden to limit Beijing’s technological prowess. Trump officials recently met with their Japanese and Dutch counterparts about restricting Tokyo Electron Ltd and ASML Holding NV engineers from maintaining semiconductor gear in China, people familiar with the matter said. The aim, which was also a priority for Biden, is to see key allies match China curbs the US
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
‘SACRED MOUNTAIN’: The chipmaker can form joint ventures abroad, except in China, but like other firms, it needs government approval for large investments Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) needs government permission for any overseas joint ventures (JVs), but there are no restrictions on making the most advanced chips overseas other than for China, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. US media have said that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp, has been in talks for a stake in Intel Corp. Neither company has confirmed the talks, but US President Donald Trump has accused Taiwan of taking away the US’ semiconductor business and said he wants the industry back
RSS