The nation’s unemployment rate last month stood at 3.3 percent, marking a 0.02 percentage point fall from the previous month to the lowest in 25 years, as fewer people quit or lost their job to business downsizing or closures, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The jobless rate after seasonal adjustments was 3.37 percent, down 0.01 percentage points from December last year, it said.
“Overall indicators suggested a stable employment market in Taiwan,” Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling (譚文玲) said.
Photo: CNA
Tan said unemployment is likely to rise moderately this month due to post-holiday job transitions and a drop in temporary positions now that the Lunar New Year holiday is over.
The total number of unemployed individuals reached 396,000, down by 3,000 from one month earlier, after people who quit dropped by 2,000, the DGBAS said in a report.
The number of first-time jobseekers and job losses linked to business contractions and closures also declined by 1,000 each, it said.
By educational breakdown, people with university diplomas had the highest unemployment rate at 4.45 percent, followed by people with high-school or vocational-school education at 3.1 percent, the report said.
Those with graduate degrees had an unemployment rate of 2.7 percent, while people who had only completed junior high school or below had the lowest unemployment rate at 2.08 percent, it said.
Demographically, people aged between 20 and 24 had the highest unemployment rate of 11.14 percent, many of whom are first-time job seekers and need more time adjusting to the workforce, the report showed.
People aged between 15 and 19 had the second-highest unemployment rate of 7.94 percent, followed by the age group between 25 and 29, it said.
People older than 35 had an unemployment rate of below 2.5 percent, and the 45-to-65 age bracket consistently had the lowest jobless rate at 2.19 percent, it added.
The number of underemployed workers — those who work fewer than 35 hours a week because of economic reasons — totaled 109,000, a 15.94 percent fall from the previous month, thanks to an increase in temporary hiring, the report said.
The potential labor force — those not currently in the workforce, but willing and ready to work — stood at 138,000, shrinking by 5,000 from the preceding month, it 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
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
WARNING SHOT: The US president has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible” — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy. The US in 2020 had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump said. Trump said he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to visit the US, without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump also said that he was talking to China about TikTok, as the US seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動). Trump last week said that he had
STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE: The group is proposing a consortium of investors, with Tesla as the largest backer, and possibly a minority investment by Hon Hai Precision Nissan Motor Co shares jumped after the Financial Times reported that a high-level Japanese group has drawn up plans to seek investment from Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc to aid the struggling automaker. The group believes the electric vehicle (EV) maker is interested in acquiring Nissan’s plants in the US, the newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify. The proposal envisions a consortium of investors, with Tesla as the largest backer, but also includes the possibility of a minority investment by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) to prevent a full takeover by the Apple supplier, the report said. The group is
RSS