With fallouts of consumer credit risks fading out, the financial sector looks set to increase its workforce in the next quarter, raising the nation's staffing demand by 4 percentage points, a report released by Manpower Services (Taiwan) Co showed yesterday.
Of the 1,349 employers interviewed this quarter, 26 percent expected to increase their staff between next month and June, while 7 percent expected to reduce their payrolls. Fifty-nine percent said they did not expect any change in staff numbers, general manager Dennis Lee (
This results in a "net employment outlook" figure -- calculated by subtracting the percentage of employers planning to reduce staffing levels from the percentage planning to hire staff -- of 19 percent.
The figure is up 4 percentage points from the current quarter and down 12 percentage points from the same period last year.
Although hiring activity has picked up from the fourth quarter last year, when the net employment outlook figure was 14 percent, the nation continues to report the Asia-Pacific region's weakest hiring intentions for the third straight quarter, the survey showed.
Singapore, New Zealand and Australia were very optimistic, as their employment outlook figures stood at 54 percent, 29 percent and 29 percent, respectively.
"Historically, the second quarter is the season for job transitions. However, the survey shows that almost 60 percent of employers have no intention of altering staff numbers and this adds to the challenges job seekers face when planning a career change," Lee said.
"People should consult professionals and carefully analyze the pros and cons before making any changes," he added.
Employers in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors had the most optimistic hiring intentions this quarter, with the figure standing at a solid 27 percent.
Employers in the transportation and utilities sectors reported the weakest hiring intentions, with the figure at 6 percent. The launch of the bullet train system along the west coast has deterred other transportation operators, such as airliners, from increasing investments, Lee said.
Strong Hu (胡之壯), agency director with the Taiwanese branch of Winterthur Life, expressed confidence in the insurance sector's job outlook.
The nation's insurers took in NT$524.6 billion (US$16 billion) in premium income on new policies. Fifty-nine percent of new policies came from sales personnel, 2 percentage points higher than the previous year, Hu said.
Citing a survey conducted earlier, Hu said that 92 percent of the respondents said they still preferred buying policies from agents, although banking and telemarketing channels were becoming popular alternatives.
"Now insurers emphasize the professional background of their sales representatives to facilitate the promotion of popular investment-linked policies. From what I've seen, I'm sure the insurance sector will continue to report strong hiring activity," he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day