The job market is seeing a rebound from the global financial crisis, with the number of people between jobs this month falling 10.5 percent from December, an online human resource agency said yesterday.
In its latest survey, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) found it took an average of 6.42 months for job seekers to find employment, with those looking for work in medicine, real estate and the financial sector finding jobs faster than others.
“Unemployment contracted for the fourth month to 5.74 percent in December and is expected to drop even further in January and this month,” 104 Job Bank spokesman Max Fang (方光瑋) told reporters yesterday, citing data released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
Fang suggested that job seekers be active and lose no time in looking for jobs.
The survey, which polled 3,654 job seekers between Jan. 14 and Jan. 20, found that 36 percent planned to look for employment in a different sector.
“In the last couple of months, 46 percent of job seekers have successfully switched to a different sector, while 48 percent changed jobs within the same industry,” Fang said.
A separate survey that polled 604 enterprises over the same period found that up to 49.5 percent of enterprises had announced job openings before the coming Lunar New Year and that 18.5 percent would begin hiring new staff after the holidays.
More than 50 percent of companies said it was important for job seekers to understand the culture of companies to which they are applying and improve their professional knowledge.
Fang said that nearly 60 percent of enterprises worried that those who were unemployed for more than 7.07 months would not be enthusiastic enough about their work and 34.5 percent were concerned that long-term unemployed might have trouble readjusting to working under pressure.
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