The unemployment rate rose as expected last month, as more first-time jobseekers — who have just left school — have not found a appropriate position yet, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
The jobless rate, a lagging economic indicator, surged 0.08 percentage points from a month earlier to 4.35 percent last month, the DGBAS said, adding that last month’s unemployment rate was still 0.81 percentage points lower than a year earlier.
The seasonally adjusted jobless rate, a more reliable indicator of the long-term trend, was slightly down 0.01 percentage points from the previous month to 4.4 percent last month, DGBAS data showed.
“The unemployment rate usually increases in the graduation season — from June to August — based on data from the past 20 years, ” Chen Min (陳憫), a deputy director at the DGBAS, told a press conference.
The number of unemployed increased by 10,000 from a month earlier to 486,000, with the number of first-time jobseekers failing to find a position up by 12,000, the agency said in a press release.
As graduates will keep entering the labor market during this period, this month’s and next month’s jobless rate may increase, Chen said.
Charlene Chang (張旭嵐), spokeswoman at 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行), also expects the seasonal effect to have a negative impact on the unemployment rate in the short term.
“First-time jobseekers are spending more time finding a ‘satisfying’ position this year, believing they can look for a better offer amid the continuing economic -recovery,” Chang said in a press release.
The DGBAS also unveiled its latest data on wages, another lagging economic gauge, with workers earning an average of NT$36,746 (US$1,270) per month in May, up 1.33 percent from a year earlier.
Adding in year-end and other bonuses, the average nominal wage rose 0.14 percent from a year earlier to NT$42,062 per month, data showed.
In the first five months, regular wages rose 1.36 percent to NT$36,576, the DGBAS said.
Nominal wages grew 3.77 percent from a year earlier, marking the highest level ever, the DGBAS said.
Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), chief economist at Citigroup in Taipei, said in a research report yesterday that the growth of nominal wages in the first five months was still below his expectation of a 5 percent increase for the whole year.
However, with the government’s measures to boost the wages of civil servants and private workers, the growth of nominal wages may accelerate in the second half of this year, Cheng said.
The DGBAS also expected the average wage to be driven up further once the 5.03 percent increase in the minimum wage, which was announced by the Council of Labor Affairs on Thursday, takes effect, the Citigroup economist said.
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