Average regular monthly wages picked up 2.91 percent in January from a year earlier to NT$47,458 (US$1,440), the fastest rise in 15 years, while total wages — including commissions and overtime pay — soared 38.18 percent to NT$113,846 on the back of year-end bonuses, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The spike in total compensation had to do with the timing of the Lunar New Year that led most local companies to distribute year-end bonuses in January, whereas some firms did so in February last year, the statistics agency said.
After adjusting for inflation, real regular wages edged up 0.23 percent year-on-year, while real total wages jumped 34.60 percent, it said.
Photo: CNA
Average non-regular compensation reached NT$66,388 partly because local tech firms maintained operations over the holiday to meet demand from US clients for electronics used in artificial intelligence (AI), the DGBAS said.
By sector, finance and insurance companies topped the rankings, with NT$299,000 in total monthly wages, the agency said.
Manufacturers, electricity and gas suppliers, transportation and storage facilities, as well as publishing, audiovisual, and information and communications companies, also provided above-par wages, it said.
Within the manufacturing industry, makers of electronic components and personal computers, as well as optical devices, benefited from the AI craze, with their employees receiving total wages of NT$160,000 and NT$179,000 respectively, the agency said.
The median wage, a more sensible gauge of typical regular wages, as it is not skewed by extremely high or low wages, grew 2.98 percent to NT$38,142 in January, the biggest growth since 2021, it said.
As for overtime hours, an indicator of business prosperity, electronics suppliers put up 24.7 hours of overtime, up for 19 straight months and higher than the 15.8 hours for the whole manufacturing industry, the agency said.
By contrast, restaurants, hairdressers and other services providers lagged behind in both take-home pay and total compensation, it said.
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