Sharon Lee (李宇軒), who finished her bachelor’s degree last month, is not excited about joining the “real world.” The 22-year-old has sent out 30 resumes since March, looking for a job that pays NT$25,000 a month.
Her expectations may seem reasonable enough, but Lee is bracing for a protracted search that could take months more as the recession dampens job opportunities.
The unemployment rate, which hit a record 5.82 percent in May, is likely to have topped 6 percent last month, when university and college seniors graduated and joined the ranks of job hunters.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) is due to unveil figures for last month on Wednesday. The statistics agency has warned that the labor market has yet to hit bottom, even though the downturn has showed signs of letup.
Lee has cause for concern. Since graduation, not one of her 230 classmates from the department of journalism at Shih Hsin University has landed a job.
There are about 287,000 new graduates this year. A survey by the Ministry of Education found that 44 percent of them intend to seek employment, with the remainder either seeking a higher degree or doing their military service.
The government has sponsored internships and encouraged new graduates to continue education to blunt the effect on the unemployment rate. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) and other Cabinet officials concede that job hunting is challenging in the current economic environment.
A survey by 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) found there were approximately 64,000 entry-level job openings, a drop of 42.8 percent from the same time last year.
Monica Chiu (邱文仁), marketing director of 104 Job Bank, said many companies turned down entry-level applicants because it could take three to six months of training before they become productive.
Jennifer Hong (洪雪珍), manager of Yes 123 Job Bank, said first-time job seekers had an average of 79 rival applicants per job, compared with 31 last year.
“It could take seven months to find employment,” Hong said. “They shouldn’t lose heart.”
DGBAS figures put the average unemployment period for job seekers at 27.4 weeks, or 38.4 weeks for first-time job seekers.
Hong advised new job seekers not to attach too much importance to their starting salary and other benefits.
Amy Li (李品慧), 22, who graduated last month from Shih Chien University, is looking for a nine-to-five job as an administrative assistant on weekdays so that she can keep her part-time weekend job selling health products.
Li, a resident of Banciao (板橋), Taipei County, who majored in preschool education, said she has given up hoping for a preschool job because the field is overcrowded.
“Anyway, being a preschool teacher is not that desirable in light of the low wages and low mobility” Li said.
Jobs in administration and customer service are the most popular among new graduates because they require little expertise. But firms that can afford to hire need sales staffers to boost revenues.
With profits sinking, employers usually cut entry-level salaries, with applicants with higher education seeing the biggest drop.
New graduates with bachelor’s degrees are offered an average of NT$27,257 a month, down 5.5 percent from last year, while applicants with master’s degrees are offered NT$30,517, down 8.9 percent from last year, 104 Job bank said.
The 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行) estimated starting salaries at NT$24,582 for new college graduates, down 5.78, while Yes 123 put the figure at NT$23,000.
Yang Yu-ching (楊育青), another graduate from Shih Hsin University, said the sum was acceptable, given the cutthroat competition.
Yang wants to find a job in media or public relations, but may broaden her search if she can’t find what she is looking for.
But Yang, a resident of Kaohsiung, said she was not anxious.
“There’s no hurry since I just finished college,” she said.
Lin Hsien-ya (林賢雅), vice manager of communications at the 1111 online job portal, said vague ideas of one’s goals contributes to a high jobless rate among college graduates, who constitute 5.63 percent of the nation’s 633,000 unemployed.
Lin said many young job seekers also demonstrate a lack of passion and respect for their work, although they are often more malleable and less expensive than hiring more experienced employees.
“These qualities help explain why 45 percent of new college graduates last year were unable to find full-time jobs within six months, while another 18 percent had [already] quit,” Lin said.
Unlike Yang, Lee, a resident of Kinmen, where employment opportunities are limited, is considering a government-funded internship.
Although the salary is low at NT$22,000 a month and the position only lasts a year, “a short-term job is better than none,” Lee 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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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