Taiwan's jobless rate in March reversed a four-month decline with a rise of 0.04 percentage points month-on-month to 5.16 percent, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said yesterday.
The figure remains sharply higher from the 3.89 percent recorded a year earlier, officials said.
The directorate said 513,000 people were jobless in March, a rise of 5,000 from a month before.
The result mainly reflected a month-on-month increase of 7,000 people who became unemployed because they were dissatisfied with their previous jobs and 6,000 who lost jobs after the termination of seasonal or temporary employment, it said.
While rising global demand for computers and mobile phones probably ended Taiwan's worst-ever recession last quarter, an export rebound may not be enough to cap the jobless rate.
More manufactures are moving factories to China to cut costs, draining jobs from Taiwan, and WTO membership is opening the local market to a flood of cheaper imports.
``Traditional manufacturers of goods like garments, textiles and toys are moving to the China because labor costs are higher here and growth is limited,'' said Tina Lo (羅曉畹), a market researcher at 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行), Taiwan's largest online job recruitment agency.
``Fired workers are having trouble finding suitable jobs.''
Unemployment in the three months to March averaged 5.14 percent, up from 3.66 percent a year earlier, the directorate said.
The monthly unemployment rate was likely to fall below 5 percent from the fourth quarter of this year, said Chen Jin-cherng (陳金城), deputy director of the bureau of census at the directorate.
However the directorate said uncertainty over the unemployment situation would continue in the near term although an improvement was seen sometime this year.
"There are expectations that the economy may stage a recovery in the three months to September but we will see school graduates enter into job market in June-August," Chen said.
There are signs pointing to improvement in the three months beginning October although a broader view of jobless numbers shows the indicator reached its highest-ever level of 7.32 percent in March from 7.2 percent in February.
The broader view of unemployment takes into account those who want jobs but did not seek employment.
Chen hopes high-technology companies will help lift the job market.
"There is increasing demand for personnel from technology firms ... such demand and demand from related services may help cut the monthly jobless level [as defined via the standard method] to below 5 percent from the last quarter."
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