Taiwan’s unemployment climbed to nearly 5.2 percent last month, rising for the second consecutive month as an increase of graduates crowded the job market, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The latest jobless rate was 0.04 percentage points higher than the June level, meaning an extra 8,000 people could not find employment. However, the seasonal adjusted figure stood at 5.17 percent, falling for the sixth straight month, indicating gradual, but slow improvement for the job market.
“The jobless rate edged a little higher [last month] as more graduates and part-timers entered the market, encouraged by the improving economy,” said Liu Tian-shy (劉天賜), a deputy director at DGBAS census bureau.
Starting in June, some 140,000 graduates were expected to join the job force, Liu said.
Last month, 578,000 people were unemployed, increasing by 8,000 from a month earlier, the statement said. The number of first-time seekers increased by 15,000, while 14,000 people lost their jobs to business closures or downsizing, the directorate said.
The number of people who lost jobs to seasonal or temporary hiring stood at 1,000 last month, while 6,000 people quit of their own accords.
People with college and higher education topped other groups sorted by education level, as 5.74 percent of them could not land a job last month, trailed by their peers who only have a high school education at 5.55 percent, the statement said.
Meanwhile, people aged between 25 and 44 had the hardest time finding jobs, as 337,000 of them were unemployed, government statistics showed.
However, the directorate expressed optimism about the enlarging job pool. Last month, 10.53 million people were employed with 55,000 more jobs available than a month earlier, showing signs of growth momentum, the statement said.
The increase came mainly from the service and manufacturing sectors, which hired 44,000 and 13,000 more workers last month respectively, the directorate said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
RSS