Consumer confidence this month dropped slightly as a result of the public's mixed feelings about future economic conditions, according to a survey released by National Central University yesterday.
"The confidence index edged down by 0.41 points from last month to 75.27 points in October, mainly because people expressed optimistic sentiment toward buying durable goods in the next six months, but showed worries about commodity price fluctuations," Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬), head of the university's Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development, said yesterday.
The index gauges the public's expectations on stock performance, household finances, durable goods, job opportunities, consumer price fluctuations and the domestic economic outlook for the next half year.
Due to oil price hikes, consumer confidence in commodity price changes continued to fall for the seventh month in a row, showing no signs of improvement, according to the survey.
An overwhelming 81.18 percent of polled respondents, or 3.24 percent more than last month, said commodity prices will keep going up in the near term.
"We do not rule out the possibility that more people hence expressed their willingness to purchase houses when the interest rate is still favorable," Chu said.
As shown in the survey, which was conducted among 2,072 people between Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, 33.06 percent of respondents said the next six months will be a good time to buy durable goods, such as houses, cars and large household appliances -- compared with 17.42 percent who showed pessimism.
The report also showed that 48.8 percent are planning to buy houses within the next five years.
"As long as the unemployment rate does not rise and people's incomes do not decline, the housing sector will not deteriorate -- especially when transactions have heated up since the third quarter last year," said Chuang Meng-han (莊孟翰), an industrial economics professor at Tamkang University.
The jobless rate fell to 4.5 percent last month from 4.67 percent in August as the growing economy boosted employment, the government reported last week.
But if the government decides to relax restrictions to allow more traditional businesses to apply for foreign workers, it might impact people's employment outlook, which has shown an upward trend over the past year in the university survey, said Day Jaw-yang (戴肇洋), deputy director of Research Division III at the Taiwan Research Institute (台綜院).
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