Nearly 70 percent of new graduates were still looking for work as of the end of last month, with a majority pointing to disappointment with the low starting salary, a survey by online job agency 104 Job Bank said yesterday.
The survey, which polled 1,791 young adults from Aug. 24 to Aug. 31, showed that 69.6 percent of respondents had yet to secure a job — a higher ratio than pre-crisis levels, the Taipei-based agency said.
Max Fang (方光瑋), public relations manager of 104 Job Bank, attributed the still-high percentage of unemployed new graduates in the labor market to the large discrepancy between their salary expectations and actual wages.
“Those new graduates who haven’t found jobs yet were, on average, expecting a starting salary of NT$26,240, which is NT$474 higher than the monthly average wage,” Fang said, adding that college graduates’ salary expectations were the highest.
A separate survey by the agency showed that more than 70 percent of employers said it was harder to hire new graduates this year than last year given the increased numbers of job openings in the first half as the economy rebounded, which made new graduates more “picky” in looking for jobs.
More than 25 percent of respondents, up from the 15.5 percent recorded last year, said that they turned down their first job offer because it offered limited prospects for career development.
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