By Shelley Huang
Staff Reporter
The number of job openings registered at online sites have reached new highs recently as businesses ramp up hiring plans and job seekers are taking more time to assess their career moves.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
While the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) announced a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.64 percent last month from 4.69 percent the previous month, job banks have also seen businesses begin to recruit more aggressively.
Henry Ho (何啟聖), a public relations director at 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行), said the online database currently contains about 330,000 job openings, which sets a new record for the highest number of positions available in 14 years.
The number of openings have increased by about 10 percent since February, a popular time for those contemplating switching jobs to hand in their resignations after they collect their Lunar New Year bonuses, Ho said.
The job bank has also seen the number of positions increase by more than 30 percent compared with the same period last year, when the economy was only just on the path to a gradual recovery, he said.
“There is an extended period of job hunting following the peak job-switching season after the Lunar New Year this year,” he said. “As the job market improves and more positions become available, job seekers have more options open to them and they may take longer to consider their next career move, thereby lengthening the time they take to look for a job.”
The Council of Labor Affairs’ -official bank, eJob, is also reporting good numbers.
The council said there are more than 170,000 job openings, out of a total of 204,800, that did not require prior work experience, which is good news for new graduates.
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