The unemployment rate fell to 4.14 percent last month from 4.36 percent in August, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The figure for last month was the lowest for the same month over the past five years, down from 4.50 percent a year earlier, the statistics agency said.
On a seasonally-adjusted basis, unemployment in the month stood at 4.01 percent, down 0.10 percentage points from the previous month and 0.32 percentage points from a year earlier, the DGBAS said.
Unemployment in the nine months to last month averaged 4.19 percent, down 0.33 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency added.
As companies hired more workers to cope with rising demand, DGBAS said the number of unemployed people fell to 430,000 last month from 454,000 in August.
Falling unemployment may boost consumer confidence, said Wu Chung-shu (吳中書), a research fellow at Academia Sinica.
"Domestic consumption has been picking up, the property market is improving and that's creating more jobs in services industries such as hotels and restaurants," Wu said.
Rising electronics exports may drive the jobless rate below 4 percent in coming months, he said.
The eligible workforce last month was 10.38 million, up 1.28 percent from a year earlier, while the labor participation rate in the month rose to 57.70 percent, up 0.10 percentage points from a year earlier.
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