The national unemployment rate last month rose 0.03 percentage points to 3.49 percent, as an increase in first-time jobseekers more than offset a drop in people who lost their jobs due to downsizing and closures, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The reading is the lowest for June in 23 years, despite the arrival of graduation season, thanks to healthy labor demand in the service sector, the statistics agency said.
“Although the labor market was resilient, exporters are taking a hit from soft demand and put more than 10,000 people on unpaid leave,” Census Department Deputy Director Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) said.
Photo: CNA
After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate fell 0.05 percentage points to 3.45 percent, affirming a stable market, Chen said.
The number of unemployed people was 417,000 last month, up 1.03 percent from May, as the number of first-time jobseekers grew by 5,000, the DGBAS’ monthly survey showed.
Meanwhile, the number of people who were laid off due to business downsizing and closures fell by 1,000.
Chen said there was no need to worry about a seasonal rise in unemployment rates, which tend to increase 0.11 to 0.24 percentage points between May and August.
The unemployment rate rose only slightly last month due to the Dragon Boat Festival holiday starting on June 22, which boosted business at retailers, restaurants, hotels and recreational facilities, she said.
Service providers added 10,000 people to their payrolls, while the agricultural sector hired 1,000 workers, she said, adding that manufacturers, by contrast, fired 1,000 people.
The number of people who worked less than 35 hours due to economic reasons was 202,000, 19,000 fewer than a month earlier and within the range of the 180,000 to 220,000 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
By education level, people with university degrees had the highest unemployment rate at 4.8 percent, followed by those with high-school diplomas at 3.22 percent, people with graduate degrees at 2.81 percent and people with junior-high or lower education at 2.39 percent, the DGBAS said.
People aged 20 to 24 had the highest unemployment rate of 12.03 percent, followed by those aged 15 to 19 at 8.42 percent, 25 to 29 at 5.97 percent and 30 to 34 at 3.72 percent, it said.
People 45 or older had the lowest jobless rate of 2.13 percent.
The average unemployment period was 20.9 weeks, 1.7 weeks shorter than in May, while it was 18.7 weeks for first-time jobseekers, it said.
Taiwan’s unemployment rate is higher than Hong Kong’s 3 percent, South Korea’s 2.7 percent and Japan’s 2.7 percent, DGBAS data showed.
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