The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 3.81 percent last month from 3.86 percent in March because the number of first-time job seekers declined by 6,000 and the number of seasonal workers fell by 4,000, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The figure for last month was the lowest rate in April since 2006, when the rate was 3.78 percent, and the lowest rate since January when the figure was 3.80 percent, DGBAS said in a statement posted on its Web site.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, unemployment stood at 3.92 percent, up 0.02 percentage points from the previous month, but 0.03 percentage points lower than a year earlier, the statistics bureau’s data showed.
Unemployment in the first four months of the year averaged 3.85 percent, up 0.02 percentage points from the same period last year, the statement said.
As companies hired more workers to cope with rising demand, DGBAS said the number of unemployed fell to 412,000 last month from 417,000 in March.
The eligible workforce stood at 10.39 million for the month, up 15,000 from March and 150,000 more than a year earlier, DGBAS’ tallies showed. Moreover, the average workforce was 10.38 million people in the first four months of the year, up 136,000, or 1.33 percent, from a year earlier, which indicated stable growth momentum in the domestic labor market, Central News Agency reported yesterday, citing Huang Chien-chung (黃建中), a deputy director at DGBAS.
With the decline in the jobless rate last month, Huang said the nation was not exposed to a risk of “stagflation,” in which both the unemployment rate and the inflation rate grow, the report said. The nation’s consumer prices rose 3.86 percent last month year-on-year, DGBAS reported on May 5.
Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), chief economist at Citigroup Inc Taiwan, said the seasonally-adjusted figure of 3.92 percent last month was in line with the bank’s and the market’s expectations. Cheng said that the latest data would have little impact on financial markets and reveal no new direction on future consumption trends.
“Although a stable job market would support a gradual recovery in private consumption, limited pick-up in nominal wages continues to cap consumption growth,” Cheng wrote.
Nominal wages increased by 1.91 percent year-on-year in March and 1.56 percent year-on-year in the first quarter. The average real wage, however, dropped 1.87 percent year-on-year to NT$34,375 in the first three months because of the inflation-erosion effect, DGBAS data showed.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last