The average worker in Taiwan earns a monthly salary of NT$36,564, a slight increase from the same period two years ago, a recent survey released by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) showed.
The survey, which sampled more than 9,000 workers across the country in August last year, found that employees in “managerial or supervisory” positions earned the most money at NT$59,960, about 1.64 times as much as the average monthly salary. They were followed by professionals, who earned an average of NT$49,625 a month.
Workers in the “service personnel or salesperson” category were the lowest earners at NT$22,747, about 0.62 times the salary of average workers, the survey showed.
Professionals also enjoyed a more dramatic increase in their salaries compared with previous years.
Professionals saw their paychecks grow by 4.34 percent from the same period in 2006, compared with 1.38 percent for the average worker. Service providers and salespeople, whose salary dropped, were last in terms of salary growth, with their monthly salaries shrinking by 2.27 percent.
The survey showed that the highest earners tended to be professionals or those who have hazardous jobs. Airplane pilots, earning NT$152,239 per month, took the lead, followed by actuaries at NT$142,470, doctors at NT$91,696, professional athletes at NT$88,540 and lawyers at NT$87,500.
Although doctors and lawyers are already big earners, Cheng Wen-yuan (鄭文淵), director of the council’s Statistics Department, said their salaries could be underestimated because the survey sampled businesses and organizations, not individual employees. Doctors and lawyers who are employed by more than one company may therefore be earning more than the average reported salary.
Performers at recreational locations — a category that excludes celebrity-status performing artists — came in last in terms of average monthly salaries, earning only NT$14,377.
They were followed by waiters and waitresses at NT$14,775, bartenders at NT$16,853, gas station workers at NT$17,469 and dental assistants at NT$17,289.
Low-wage workers tended to be temporary or part-time workers, whose work usually does not require a high level of skills and who are easily replaceable, Cheng said.
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