As companies laid off more workers than they hired, the net demand in the labor market shrank by more than 90,000 people in the first quarter this year, 16 times worse than the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) expected.
Council statistics showed that as of the beginning of the first quarter, companies reported more firings than hirings.
Hsiao Hsing-fu (蕭興富), deputy director of the council’s Statistics Department, said: “9.78 percent of companies in the country increased their workforce from the previous quarter, while three times as many companies [30.29 percent] laid off workers.”
“During this period, 18,800 were hired and 110,500 laid off, which means the net demand in the labor market shrank by 91,700 people,” he said.
The number is 16 times higher than the council’s net projected demand of 5,561 about three months ago.
In December, companies said they planned to hire 21,071 people and lay off 26,632 workers, which brought the council’s net projected demand to a negative number, a first in the survey’s history.
The council made another gloomy prediction for the job market in the second quarter, as net demand is expected to shrink by 2,400 people. Almost 10 percent of companies surveyed said they planned to hire workers, a total of 20,200 people, while about the same percentage of companies said they planned to lay off 22,600 people.
The council surveyed more than 3,000 companies with at least 30 employees across the country from Jan. 9 to Jan. 23. Of the companies with plans to lay off workers, three-quarters of them said that “operation scale-backs or shutdowns” were the reasons for the layoffs, while about 40 percent cited “personnel cutbacks” as another reason.
Although the phenomenon occurred in almost all industries and professions, the most severely hit were manufacturing workers (4,700 people), construction (1,100 people) and retail and distribution (1,100 people).
Companies with plans to hire more workers said the reasons were “growing demand for products or services” (35.65 percent) and “equipment or department expansion” (33.78 percent). Workers affected by this were mostly in service industries requiring professional knowledge or a high level of skills.
In related news, the Council reported that the number of people on unpaid leave as of the beginning of this month had soared to 239,000. This is an 18 percent increase from the middle of last month, when 233,000 workers were reported to be on unpaid leave.
To cope with the economic downturn, companies, especially those in the high-tech sector, are forcing workers to take unpaid leave in order to lower salary costs while retaining staff to deal with orders when they start coming in again.
The Taipei Times reported that last month the number of workers on full or partial unpaid leave in the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park has reached more than 100,000, accounting for 77 percent of the park’s total work force.
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