The nation’s unemployment rate fell for a third consecutive month to 5.86 percent last month, but unemployment for the January-November period still hit a record high of 5.86 percent, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate edged down for a second straight month to 5.98 percent last month, 0.06 percentage points down from 6.04 percent in October, the agency said.
“Amid the global economic recovery, Taiwan’s imports and exports as well as spending have gradually revived, leading businesses to hire more employees,” Liu Tian-syh (劉天賜), deputy director of the DGBAS’ Bureau of Census, told a media briefing.
However, Liu said that if the government were to push the unemployment rate to below 5 percent — the level before the global financial crisis — it would have to create 150,000 jobs.
As unemployment levels remain high in the US and Europe, Taiwan’s exports could be affected, which in turn increases domestic unemployment, Liu said.
The population of unemployed middle-aged and elderly people reached 141,000 last month, while the number of people who have been without work for more than a year reached about 112,000 last month.
Tony Phoo (符銘財), chief economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Taipei, said yesterday that the latest figures showed Taiwan’s job market was in better shape than initially feared.
Still, the overall unemployment rate might not fall dramatically in the months ahead, he said.
“Local firms and businesses — except for the high-tech sector — are expected to be cautious about excessive capex spending into 2010,” he said in an e-mail.
With a still weak labor market and low inflation, Phoo forecast that the central bank would keep its key interest rate at the record low of 1.25 percent tomorrow, when monetary policymakers gather for a quarterly meeting.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KEVIN CHEN
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