Despite concern that the nation is experiencing an economic slowdown, there are plenty of job openings in the labor-intensive distribution and retail sectors just waiting to be filled by energetic graduates, industry watchers said yesterday.
"The employment market actually looks very optimistic for job seekers in the latter half of the year, as opportunities abound," said Kevin Zang (臧聲遠), chief editor of the local monthly magazine Career (就業情報).
Domestic retail giants, such as the 7-Eleven convenience-store chain, health and cosmetics retailer Watsons and hypermarket operator RT-Mart (
As most young people are wary of working for distribution and retail companies, which require physical labor and long working hours, Zang said business operators are offering better salaries for outlet chiefs as an incentive to recruit talented young employees.
"Although economic growth is slowing down, the service industry is bucking the trend and hiring more staff," he said.
Last month, the government revised downward its GDP forecast for the year to 3.63 percent from the previous prediction of 4.21 percent, citing sluggish exports amid a weakening global economy. This is the second time it has slashed the forecast this year.
In addition, the unemployment rate last month rose to 4.1 percent from 4.04 percent in April, with a total of 424,000 people jobless last month.
Despite these challenges, this summer would be a good time to land ideal jobs as the employment market prepares for a wave of new job seekers, said Monica Chiu (
"Since last year, many local companies have been dedicating huge resources to the development of new products and services in the hope of retaking the turf they lost in 2002 and 2003, when the economy was at a low. Now salespeople and technology-savvy professionals are among the most wanted," she said.
Chiu dismissed market concerns that high-tech businesses are losing their appeal in terms of recruiting new blood, saying these market leaders always open their arms wide to welcome graduates with a science and engineering background, especially software engineers.
Zang, however, said there is a possibility that the market will soon see an overflow of unemployed people with science qualifications, as high-tech companies are reducing their job openings.
He attributed this to manufacturers relocating their production lines to China, as well as company mergers, as in the case of the nation's largest chip-design firm, MediaTek Inc (
To help graduates land their first job quickly, Career will hold a two-day exposition starting tomorrow in the Taipei World Trade Center's Exhibition Hall III. There is no entrance fee.
The expo will feature nearly 200 companies offering more than 30,000 job opportunities, ranging from the semiconductor, manufacturing and service industries to finance and insurance.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to